Narrator: Begin momentarily.
Thank you for your patience.
Jeanne McKinney: The carrier designation.
Today is November 16th, 2021.
We are conducting this public participation hearing remotely
due to the continuing impacts of COVID-19.
My name is Jeanne McKinney,
and I am the Administrative Law Judge for this proceeding.
There is also a second Administrative Law Judge
or ALJ assigned to this proceeding and that's Jason Jungreis
and he is also in attendance this evening.
Commissioner Darcie Houck is the assigned Commissioner
and she in attendance and we will be hearing
a few comments from her shortly.
Commissioner Rechtschaffen is also in attendance.
Please note that the audio visual feed
of this public hearing is being recorded
and is available on our website.
On May 14th, 2021, AT&T Corporation filed an application
to discontinue residential services
in the service territory of Frontier Communications.
There were approximately 2,700 customers impacted
when AT&T filed its request.
AT&T sent notices to the impacted customers
to inform them of their choices,
which are to choose a new service provider
or to be transferred to Frontier if they take no action.
This application is pending regulatory approval
and this public forum.
And once we're done with the forum AT&T Corporation
will transfer any remaining residential
local phone service customers to Frontier
on or after December 16th, 2021,
meaning that customers have until then
to make us us switch other than Frontier.
AT&T Corporation is a competitive local exchange carrier,
and is a separate entity from AT&T California.
This transfer of service only impacts
the residential customers AT&T Corporation
inside of Frontier Service territory.
The PUC has a map on our website
that shows which communities are impacted
and also a list of communities.
If you think you might be impacted,
but you're not sure you can contact AT&T Corporation
at 1-800-250-8949.
As I noted earlier, Commissioner Houck is with us today.
Commissioner, would you like to make some opening remarks?
-: Yes.
Thank you, Judge McKinney.
Good evening, everyone.
I wanna thank Judge McKinney, Judge Jungreis,
Alison brown our Public Advisor, our staff,
our PUC court reporters,
Andrea Ross, and Rebecca DeRosa,
as well as Robert Sanford and the it staff.
We can not hold these meetings
without all of the work that they do.
I also wanna thank my advisor,
Candace Cho for all of her work on this proceeding.
I recognize that there has been considerable public concern
regarding this application based on the comments
that we've received at Commission voting meetings
over the last several meetings.
Based on the comments that we've received,
we believe it's important to hold this public forum
so that AT&T Corporation and the other parties
can clearly explain what will occur
as a result of this transfer of service.
While the Commission's rules do not prevent AT&T Corporation
from ultimately transferring any remaining customers
to Frontier, AT&T is required to meet certain obligations
before it is committed to do so.
We reviewed AT&T's application and the notices
that it mailed to customers to make sure
that they meet regulatory requirements.
Additionally, alternative telephone providers,
such as Frontier will continue to be subject
to the Commission Service quality rules.
And if you choose Frontier as your telephone provider,
your phone service will continue to be provided
on the same equipment as it is today with AT&T.
This public forum is also an opportunity
for the Commission and telephone companies
to hear from the public and the impact
that this transfer will have on customers.
So with that, I look forward to hearing
from the parties and from the public
this evening on this important topic.
Also, I wanna recognize that Commissioner Rechtschaffen
is here today, and I don't know
if he wanted to make any comments.
I'll turn it to him and then back to Judge McKinney.
-: [Commissioner Rechtschaffen] No,
thank you Commissioner Houck.
No opening comments for me.
-: All right, thank you Commissioners.
Before we start, I'd like to give everyone a brief overview
of what the Public Utilities Commission does.
We are a state agency that regulates
privately owned utilities, that provide essential services
such as water, gas, electric,
and we do regulate certain aspects
of telecommunications service,
including AT&T's request that we're looking at tonight.
The Federal Communications Commission or FCC,
regulates other aspects of telecommunications.
There are five Commissioners at the PUC.
Two of them are here this evening.
The five Commissioners will be the people
who vote and decide whether to transfer of customers,
which has done as mass migration,
complies with the Commission's standards.
My role as the assigned Administrative Law Judge
is to review the application,
and then based on the evidence that is presented,
I will write a proposed decision,
and the Commissioners will then consider it and vote on it.
There were no evidentiary hearings in this proceeding
and none are scheduled.
This means that all of the evidence
was submitted be it in testimony
or is part of the administrative record on the docket card.
There are four parties to this proceeding
and we will get to hear from each of them.
There's AT&T, and then Public Advocate's Office,
Center for Accessible Technology
and the Utility Reform Network also known as TURN.
The Public Advocate's Office is
an independent branch within the PUC
who worked to represent the interest of rate payers.
They do not work for me or for the Commissioner.
Both AT&T and Frontier will give a brief presentation
followed by remarks in the various other parties.
The purpose of the PPH tonight is to hear from you
about how this transfer of service will impact you,
your family and your community as an AT&T customer.
We also want to hear if there are things
that AT&T Corporation could have done differently
or could do now to ease the transition.
Your comments will help the PUC gather information
to determine whether to grant AT&T's application
and how to improve this process in the future,
if another competitive local exchange carrier
in California decides to discontinue service.
In addition to considering the comments received here today,
we are also considering comments received in writing,
including the electronic comments
that have been posted to the docket card.
As of this morning, there were approximately 40 comments
and the public is very interested
in maintaining copper landline service.
If you are participating today
and would like to provide public comments,
you may do so by calling 1-800-857-1917
and entering pass code 1-6-7-3-4-8-2
and pressing Star + One on your phone.
This will alert the operator
who will begin to cue public speakers.
Please provide your name and your zip code to the operator.
If you are a public official,
please notify the operator of your title and position
in addition to your name,
because the purpose today is to hear from you.
We do not expect to be answering
any questions or fielding questions.
However, we are going to start with presentations
from AT&T and Frontier to learn more about the application.
If you have a customer specific question,
such as a question about your bill or service,
we have arranged for our customer service representative
to be available from AT&T and for Frontier,
and you can call them directly with your specific question.
And we'll give these numbers again later on,
but for AT&T it's 800-250-8949.
And for Frontier it's Wendy Ellen at 9-7-2-3-9-9-8-0-6-2.
And you can also email Pub_Forum_FTR@ftr.com
And we'll put that up on the screen shortly
so that you can see how that's spelled.
Now, I'm gonna set all the ground rules for the hearing.
The court reporters will be transcribing everything
that is said here today.
Please remember to speak slowly and clearly
so that the court reporters can hear everything.
Only one person at a time can speak
as the court reporters are unable
to transcribe an accurate record
with more than one individual speaking.
To ensure that we have an accurate record,
it may be necessary for the court reporters
to interrupt a speaker and let them know
that they're in audible.
Additionally, if there is a dropped garbled
or otherwise inaudible audio, the reporter will be
just inserting the word inaudible in the transcript.
After this hearing is over the court reporters
will prepare a written transcript
which will be provided to myself and the five Commissioners
and it will also be available
to you on the docket card for this proceeding.
Typically we would conduct hearings
such as this one in person,
however, because of COVID-19,
we are doing this hearing remotely.
I want to thank everyone in advance for their patience
as we continue to work through the issues
that are sometimes present
when we conduct these remote hearings.
So first I'd like to hear
from the Public Advisor's Office and Ms. Alison Brown.
-: Thank you, judge.
Welcome everyone.
My name is Alison Brown
and I'm the Public Advisor for the CPUC.
The Public Advisor's Office assist and advises the public
with participation in Commission proceeding.
We are here as a resource to you.
I wanna thank you all for joining us today.
This is your opportunity to be heard
and to share your thoughts on the application
with the Administrative Law Judge and the Commissioner.
If you have specific questions
about the proceeding or your service,
you can reach out to the Public Advisor's Office
at public.advisor@cpuc.ca.gov
or visit the utility website for more information.
Also, if you or anyone you know,
is not able to make a comment today,
there are several ways to become involved.
Those interested can provide written comments
on today's application on the docket card.
Comments can also be provided via email,
USPS mail and the phone.
If you wish to find more information on becoming a party,
subscribing to this proceeding, you get email notifications
of anything that's filed or submitting comments,
please go to our website, cpuc.ca.gov
or email the Public Advisor at public.adviser@cpuc.ca.gov
or you can call our office at 1-8-6-6-8-4-9-8-3-9-0.
All of this information is also on the notice
you received for this event.
We look forward to your comments today.
Thank you again for joining us.
Judge?
-: Thank you, Ms. Brown.
So we'll now have a brief presentation
from AT&T and Frontier.
So it's Mark Berry from AT&T
and Charlie Bourne from Frontier.
And I believe there's a video,
there's a PowerPoint presentation for this.
Mark Berry: Yes.
Hello.
Good evening Commissioners and your Honors
and members of the public.
My name is Mark Berry and I work
in the Regulatory department at AT&T.
I'll be walking through this joint presentation
from AT&T and Frontier.
I'll be here listening to the public comments this evening,
and Commissioners or your honors.
I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
So you can go to the first slide, please.
I wanted to provide an overview
of our application at the PUC.
As many of you know, the AT&T brand
is well-known here in California.
And it's associated with many services,
including wireline, wireless and other services.
The AT&T brand has millions of customers in California.
The request before the PUC today though,
does not affect millions of customers,
but rather less than 2000 wireline
basic residential voice service customers have AT&T Corp.
which is a competitive local exchange care
and provide service to these customers
entirely via a resale arrangement with Frontier California.
Again, this request by AT&T Corp. does not affect
any customers of its ILX affiliate AT&T California.
So what is a resale arrangement?
AT&T essentially leases lines from Frontier
and then retail those lines to AT&T customers.
This means that all of these AT&T Corp.
residential customers are already served
via the Frontier network
and via Frontier service technicians
and will continue to be so after the transfer.
Frontier is an incumbent and the carrier
of last resort in this territory
and has agreed to be the arranged carrier,
and to work with AT&T to migrate
these customers to Frontier billing.
Since June of this year, we have provided five forms
of notice to our affected customers via direct mail letters,
bill pays messages and live phone calls.
After this transfer the effective customers
of AT&T Corp. will continue to receive
the same wireline basic residential phone service
that they do today, and they'll actually pay less
for their voice service as I'll discuss later.
Next slide, please.
On this next slide, I wanted to discuss
what this application is about.
So here is what it is about.
AT&T Corp. as mentioned, will begin migrating
its wireline basic residential voice service customers
to Frontier on or after December 16th
if the affected customers
do not make an alternative choice before then.
Again, all customers will continue
to receive the same wireline basic residential voice service
that they do today, on the same network,
serviced by the same technicians and at lower prices.
Features will not be transferred.
Lifeline customers will retain their lifeline discounts.
Frontier will not need to dispatch any technicians
and customers will not be required to change any equipment.
Customers will not be charged for the migration.
The post migration change the customers will notice is
that they will receive a bill directly
from Frontier not AT&T.
Next slide, please.
As I've already been mentioned,
there's been some public comment at the PUC voting meetings
and also on the docket card.
Frankly, which raised issues that are not present here
so I thought it was important to note
what the request before the CPUC is not about.
Then this request is not about discontinuing
wireline service in the state of California.
It's not about requiring customers
to move to different services or technologies
such as voice or wireless,
and it's not about the millions of customers
of other AT&T wireline wireless
or affiliate services across California.
It's also not about leaving any customer behind
because all of the less than 2000 as of yesterday,
1,960 AT&T Corp. customers who do not make
an alternative choice will be migrated again to Frontier
and will receive the same wireline basic
residential phone service that they do today.
Next slide, please.
On this last slide, I thought it would just mention
this is an excerpt from the three customer notices
that we have provided to the effective customers already.
And what we did is let them know
where their service pricing is today
and where it will be with Frontier.
So the top two boxes there on the left-hand side
show the AT&T Corp. current pricing.
For customers would flat rate service,
we call it call plan unlimited.
They currently pay $38.45 a month.
And if you look on the right-hand side,
you see the corresponding rate of Frontier
which is $22.50 a month.
That's again, just for the voice service,
which is all that's being transferred.
Back on the left you can see lifeline customers
pay $19.22 a month with AT&T Corp.
But going forward with Frontier, if transferred to Frontier
they will pay 8 84.
So it's less than half.
In the middle, we do discuss the fact
that we are not transferring features,
but features are available from Frontier.
We've given some examples of pricing there.
And at the bottom, we note that this transfer is
only for local service, but if customers wanted
to change their long distance service as well,
there is at least the package available from Frontier
that can save them money if they wanted to bundle
versus purchasing services on a service by service
what we call Polycarp basis.
So you can see on the left,
we have current AT&T package customers pay anywhere
from $47-$73 a month for a local and long distance package.
But there is one over at Frontier
that includes a local and long distance plus features
for about $43 a month.
So at AT&T we'd notify customers that,
if they want to make that choice themselves
about the long distance package
that they should call Frontier directly,
let them know that they've received a letter
from us and they can do that transfer ahead of time.
And so that's the presentation I wanted to make.
I did wanna ask Charlie Born from Frontier
if he wanted to add anything.
Charlie Born: Sure Mark,
let me just ask you I'm on speaker phone,
if that's too loud I'll pick up the handset, but...
Mark Berry: I can hear you.
Charlie Born: Yeah.
I just wanted to add and thank you, everyone
for having us and Frontier, we're very enthusiastic
and willing to participate in the transfer.
Mark and AT&T approached us
well before the application and asked
if we would work with them. And we said, "Yes,
"we are the carrier of blockchain.
"That's our network."
We know that service quality in these particular areas
which is good, very good.
And so we wanted to embrace the opportunity
and welcome these customers over.
So we've been working weekly with AT&T in terms
of the the messaging and the notices
and doing the comparisons.
And so we're ready to receive new customers
and we really appreciate the opportunity,
and it's been a very good working relationship with AT&T.
So, we're doing this with a thumbs up
willingly wanting to do this,
so I just wanted to make sure that was clear.
-: Thank you.
So thank you, Mark Berry and Charlie Born.
So next we're gonna hear from the three other parties
and I have tentatively set the order
as Public Advocate's Office,
followed by Center for Accessible Technology,
followed by TURN.
If that doesn't work, please let me know.
Otherwise, let's start with coming
from Cal Advocate's office.
-: That order sounds fine to me, your honor.
Thank you.
Good evening. LJs McKinney, Jungreis,
Commissioners Houck and Rechtschaffen
as well as members of the public.
My name is Cameron Reed.
I'm here tonight representing the Public Advocates Office
at the California Public Utilities Commission.
As LJ McKinney mentioned earlier,
we're a independent organization within the California
Public Utilities Commission.
Our statutory mission is to obtain
the lowest possible utility rates for customers,
consistent with safe, reliable service
and the state's environmental goals.
We strive to ensure that no one is left behind
and that all communities have access
to safe and affordable electric gas, water,
and communications utility services.
Our team has reviewed AT&T Corp's application,
including an examination of AT&T Corporation
proposed customer migration to Frontier
and their subsequent discontinuance of residential service.
AT&T Corp's customers deserve to be fully
and adequately informed about the migration
and not adversely impacted by it.
Customer transparency is necessary and important
to ensure that customers are fully informed
on any potential impacts to the service.
As such, after reviewing the application
our team recommended that AT&T Corp. provide
customer notifications and additional languages
such as Spanish, Tagalog, Korean, Armenian, and Chinese.
AT&T Corporation provide customer specific notices
to show exactly how customer bills will be changing.
In addition AT&T Corp. should compensate customers
who are adversely impacted, such as customers
who lifeline lifeline enrollment is impacted
or who lose access to various features.
We thank everyone for coming
to the public participation hearing,
and we definitely look forward
to hearing the public comments
and concerns regarding this application.
Thank you.
-: Thank you.
Here from center for accessible technology.
Paul Goodman: Good evening, Paul Goodman
of the Center for Accessible Technology or CforAT.
CforAT advocates on behalf of consumers with disabilities
and our particular interest in this proceeding is
to ensure that consumers with disabilities affected
by this transaction are transition
are not lost in the transition.
CforAT shares the positions just express by Cal Advocates.
In the interest of time
and because the goal of today's forum is
to hear from members of the public,
I will not repeat those positions.
Thank you, and I am of course,
available to answer any questions.
-: Thank you.
And finally, we will hear from the Utility Reform Network.
-: Good evening Commissioners, your Honors
and members of the public.
I am Ashley Salas with Turn the Utility Reform Network.
TURN advocates on behalf of consumers
on energy and telecommunications issues
in front of the California Public Utilities Commission.
I will also echo the comments made
by Cal Advocates and CforAT.
I'll note that two dates approximately 25%
of the total lines have been transitioned
as part of this transaction, oh sorry, transition,
and also less than 20% of lifetime customers have moved on.
So I look forward to hearing public comments
and from the consumers or the customers
from AT&T Corporation and I will also be available
to answer any questions.
Thank you.
-: Great.
Thank you.
All right, so as a reminder to those who wish to speak,
if you have not already done so,
you can press Star + One on your phone
to be added to the queue.
If you are not currently cued,
you can join at any time during this hearing.
And if you decide you change your mind,
you can also do that by notifying the operator.
So if you are a public official,
please let the operator know
so that we can add your title and position
in addition to your name.
It looks like we will be able
to have these caller have three minutes.
The idea is to stick with the three minutes
so that we can hear from as many people as possible.
So when you start, we'd like you to state your name,
spell it and also give us your zip code
and let us know if you are in the service territory or not.
At this time, I would like to ask
how many callers we have in the queue.
Narrator: Your honor,
we currently have three public comments in the queue.
-: All right, let's hear from the first commenter.
Narrator: Thank you.
The public comment line is now open.
Our first public comment comes from Josh Hart
of Stop Smart Meters.
Josh, your line is open.
Josh Hart: Hi there.
Good evening, everyone.
It's always a pleasure to speak to the CPUC.
My name is Josh Hart, J-O-S-H H-A-R-T.
I'm director of stopsmartmeters.org,
and also involves with the group. Save Landlines.
Have my master's degree in transportation planning
and we've been working on these issues related
to radio frequency and accessibility of communications
and utility services for more than 10 years.
We live in Portola and Plumas County.
Our town was under evacuation warning from the Dixie fire,
which was started by PG&E.
This was pretty scary for a lot of people in our town,
particularly for those people without landline service.
Landlines provide really critical communications access
for people especially during emergencies
when the power might be cut.
There's no other communications system
that has a record of performing when the power goes out,
so this is really critical.
We disagree with AT&T characterization of this transition.
This transition is part of a larger effort by,
AT&T to phase out and even insult
their own landline voice service.
Frontier's record of customer services is dim.
They went through a bankruptcy.
They've been many reports of poor customer services.
So this is going in the direction
of erosion of landline services,
which are critical especially to disabled
and rural populations.
While wildfires are increasing, floods are increasing,
our electrical grid, reliability is decreasing.
We need landline services
with their own auxiliary power sources
available to everyone, every single Californian.
This is the highest quality option,
the highest quality voice service available
more than any other other service.
Our county shifted to voice service
voiceover internet protocol after being told by AT&T
that they were gonna be phasing out landline service.
And four weeks, many people with landlines
could not contact government services.
This caused many, many problems.
According to studies, approximately five to 10%
of the public have been injured
or are sensitive to radio-frequency.
Many have been injured by the electronic
wireless smart meters approved by the CPUC.
These people cannot use cell phones,
they cannot use alternatives, they depend on landlines.
If these were cut off or the service eroded,
which AT&T continues to do,
their access to government services, to communications
will really be put at risk.
And that's why many, many people spoke out
at the CPUC meeting several months ago
when in response to our Stop Smart Meters alert to people.
Alerting them that the landline service
in California is at risk.
Obviously there was some confusion there,
it wasn't millions of customers, but only a couple thousand,
but even a couple of thousands is too many
to have a landline service be eroded for.
So he blame AT&T for this public confusion
and their past history of insulting landlines.
AT&T has also refused to provide
people in rural areas with DSL service, forcing many people,
including our household onto dial up.
So this shows the arrogance of Corporate entity...
Jeanne McKinney: Thank you Mr Hart.
And I do wanna hear from customers who are directly impacted
by this request from AT&T.
And I believe we have some additional callers.
Narrator: Our next public comment comes
from Gentle Thunder of Mount Shasta.
Gentle, your line is open.
Gentle: Good evening, everyone.
Thank you for your time and your attention
to detail with this.
I am living in Mount Shasta, California.
So I'm outside of the impacted area at this time.
However, I do live in a situation where I don't have cable
and I am very reliant on my landline,
especially when we have power outages,
which are frequent with storms and such.
So I just wanna give a shout out to support
the mindfulness and bring the question of
it sounds like there's a just an useful transfer
from AT&T Corp. to the Frontier
or another provider of their choice.
The question comes up,
what happens if that particular company was like Frontier
with its bankruptcy history or any other one
if they choose to stop providing service,
what will happen to those impacted in this area?
So I think that's one of those questions
that I hope you've already looked into,
I'm new to this particular issue.
So thank you for hearing me,
I wanna support the clearest transition
for all in this situation.
I'm grateful that it has not impacted millions,
but as was just said, any one of those 2000 people,
it could be a life or death situation.
And thanks for taking really good care
to hear everybody tonight.
And I wish you many blessings.
These are my words.
Thank you.
Jeanne McKinney: Thank you.
Do we have any additional callers?
Narrator: Yes your honor, we do.
Our next caller is Lee from Marine County 94901.
Lee, your line is open.
Ms. Lee: Oh, hello.
I'm calling 'cause I would like to say
that I never received any notification about AT&T plan
to transfer or to discontinue landline phone service.
And me along with thousands of other people,
if copper landline is stopped or transferred to a company
that had higher rates or has bad quality service,
then there'll be thousands of people
who will have no phone service
and also no internet services in California.
The landline phone cord equipment is necessary
for people who need to use the internet
through a wired DSL ethernet cable,
since many people cannot use the wireless internet
or wireless technology for health
or medical or other reasons.
So it's also imperative that the current lifeline credits
and other discounts remain available to all customers
and to all areas of California if there is a transfer
so that people will have access to landline phone
and a DSL wire and the internet.
It's really hard.
I've heard this feedback from many people
and I've had this experience to obtain,
apply for and to keep landline phone service.
The company has made it really hard.
There's been coercion and harassment
to transfer to wireless internet or wireless cell phone
which many people can't use and don't want.
There's difficulties with the
making monthly billing payments.
There's just a list of things that go on
and it used to not be this way.
I've lived in California for my entire life
and there was always great quality phone service
of landline and at affordable rates.
My concern is that if AT&T does need to transfer
to another, the landline phone
or wired internet to other providers,
that there are providers that take over
that are qualified and competent,
and have histories of providing excellent customer service
and excellent technical services at affordable rates,
and that they will follow the regulations.
Frontier has a history of bad quality business practices
and poor quality service, and also not affordable rates.
So this is a concern, and I wanted to say
that every person in every home and every area of California
that needs copper landline or wired DSL internet
needs to be able to have those services
available, affordable, accessible at any time
with no problem, and that is not happening.
And so these changes need to take place
because phone and internet is important
and necessary for our survival.
(timer beeping)
Okay.
Is that it?
Am I over?
Jeanne McKinney: Yeah.
Thank you.
And this is a reminder, if anyone else would like to speak,
please hit Star + One on your phone
and you'll be connected to the operator
who will put you into the queue.
Also, if you are unsure,
that sounds like Ms. Lee you were,
if you're being impacted by this or not,
if you haven't received notices,
then you are probably not impacted.
They've only been notifying the customers
who are impacted and you can get a list of the areas,
and Marine County is not one of them,
but you can get that list on the PUC website.
You can also call AT&T Corporation at 1-800-250-8949
if you think you might be impacted by this request.
Are there any additional callers?
Narrator: Your honor, give me just a moment.
I just got the public comment, one moment.
Our next public comment comes from...
David Web: David Webb.
Narrator: David, your line is open.
David Web: Thank you.
I'm also not living within the impacted area.
But to me, this is clearly the camel's nose under the tent.
AT&T beginning to walk away
from its past history of customer service here,
and clearly consider where the Public Utilities Commission
needs to fulfill its intended role of making sure
that those of us living here in California
do continue to have good, reliable service.
Whether that will happen with Frontier,
I don't think anyone can really say.
It sounds like some people think
that the quality of service from them has not been good.
There certainly doesn't seem to be any penalties
for poor performance by vendors
nor any recourse for individual customers
when they receive poor service.
And that doesn't leave much of an incentive
for someone to be anything other than a low budget supplier.
And I think that if something like this
is going to be allowed to move forward,
there needs to be something more solid in place
to protect users to make sure they do continue
to get the quality of service they used to.
For myself I've paid higher rates to AT&T
for the last 30 years,
I've avoided the scammers who constantly were calling,
trying to slam me and switched me to other phone vendors,
even if they are cheaper
because I want good quality, reliable service,
AT&T has always given it to me.
It's really unfortunate they want to abandon the field.
Well, this is something that one of their installers
told me years ago was going to happen,
and now it's here.
I don't think it's in the public's best interest
to allow this abandonment of quality and service
for the sake of cost savings.
but AT&T it's more important that we all have
and continue to have good, reliable service
and not be forced to rely on cell phones
whose voice quality is terrible
and its reliability is questionable,
especially in areas like I live
where the power is frequently out.
And, or we were subject to fires
and cell towers simply aren't the same
as they are in larger urban areas.
Please give this serious thought.
I appreciate your public hearing on this
and thank you very much.
Jeanne McKinney: Great.
Thank you.
Do we have any additional callers?
Narrator: I currently have
no additional public comments, your honor.
-: Okay, it sounds like then we are wrapping up.
I would like to hear it, if Commissioner Houck
or Commissioner Rechtschaffen have any comments
that they would like to close with?
-: Thank you, Judge McKinney.
I wanted to say thank you again to you,
to staff and all of the parties,
as well as the public for their participation.
We do know that as I noted earlier,
that the public has raised a number of concerns
and I hope that this meeting tonight
has provided some additional information
through the presentation.
And we've given you contact numbers for who to reach out to
if you have additional questions or concerns,
and I would encourage you to do that,
to get your questions answered.
And again, thank everyone for participating this evening.
Jeanne McKinney: Thank you, Commissioner.
And Commissioner Rechtschaffen?
-: Judge McKinney, thank you very much.
I don't have any closing comments.
I wanna echo my appreciation to you, to staff,
to the parties and to the public for coming
to tonight's meeting and helping make it possible.
-: Thank you, Commissioner.
So on behalf of myself and all the Commissioners,
I wanna thank everyone for participating today.
I realized that there were other things
that you might want to do with your free time,
and I really do appreciate hearing from you
and hearing your concerns.
I also want to thank the parties
for their very useful presentations today.
And of course, everyone here
who has worked on the remote hearing facilities,
our court reporters, the IT and the Public Advisor's Office.
This concludes the public participation hearing
for the AT&T Corporation requests
to discontinue residential service.
We are off the record.
Thank you.