Thank you very much to Californians for Safe Technology for the alert below. There is more information at SaveLandlines.org also.
CALL TO ACTION- PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY AND TAKE ACTION TODAY
AT&T has applied with the California PUC to discontinue its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligations for copper wire landlines. This decision would have devastating effects on consumer choice and public safety by phasing out essential landline services for all Californians – and would be particularly devastating to the elderly and those in rural communities.
Your help in this will protect essential copper landlines from being decommissioned across California.What can you do?
1. Call and/or Email – Calling is preferred, but both would be better. Sending an email only is second best – See talking points below. This should be done as soon as possible.
Alice Reynolds Office of the President / Executive Director Rachel Peterson (916) 894-5641 bdt@cpuc.ca.gov
John Reynolds Commissioner
Maria Sotero Policy Advisor and Interim Chief of Staff
(415) 703-2494 maria.sotero@cpuc.ca.gov
Pilar Manriquez Deputy Chief of Staff
(916) 894-5689 pilar.manriquez@cpuc.ca.gov
Sasha Goldberg – Advisor
(415) 703-5340 sasha.goldberg@cpuc.ca.gov
Cait Pollock – Advisor
(415) 703-1535 caitlin.pollock@cpuc.ca.gov
Jake McDermott – Advisor
(415) 703-1860jake.mcdermott@cpuc.ca.gov
Carolyn Chen – Advisor
(415) 703-1980 carolyn.chen@cpuc.ca.gov
3. Add a Public Comment
https://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/apex/f?p=401:65:0::NO:RP,57,RIR:P5_PROCEEDING_SELECT:A2303002
Talking Points:
Why do we need copper landlines?
- The elderly population is more dependent on copper landlines and more likely to experience technology aversion and often do not have the ability or desire to use other technology.
- Traditional copper landline service is tied to an address making it the most dependable emergency communications tool currently available and is vital to helping emergency services identify your exact location.
- Copper landlines are more reliable than wireless or VoIP services in urban, suburban, and rural areas because the copper-based systems can still work even when the power is out.
- Many rural areas depend on their copper landlines and lack other options.
- Some people and businesses prefer the quality of wired connections.
- Some people have debilitating symptoms when in close proximity to wireless connections.
Kinetic is phasing out our landline in Pennsylvania, they sent us a notice, we have less than 30 days to sign up for this stupid VoIP! No choice- unless we want no phone. From what I could find there is something called an analog telephone adapter that can be put on the regular phone, not sure if this keeps the EMR away or not.
Does anyone know if hooking a landline phone to an adapter will keep the EMF away? We might have to locate the stupid phone in an out building.
They got rid of our (ethernet) internet without telling us last year, our dumb state never let anyone have an opt out for electrical service. So now I read that the VoIP uses ethernet to connect to the fiberoptics? Why didn’t they let us keep our ethernet? The guy who came out to try and “fix” our internet said he never even saw an ethernet port (the box). He also didn’t believe that cellphone towers radiated EMR. Can you believe this??? Crazy.
So, does anyone know if VoIP is a source of EMR? Thanks in advance.
The way they are trying to get us to accept is (by either us or the ISP) hooking up a base station, which broadcasts to other cordless phones. This aspect does inflict RF on us. However, what you can do is make it so everything is hardwired.
Please check this out: https://www.voipmyhouse.com/
This explains how you can have all your exisiting copper phone jacks work again via VOIP in a way that doesn’t involve RF.
About the service itself:
If you don’t have an ethernet port on your router then I would switch providers or plans. I think AT&T is trying to push a new “Air” type WiFi. They’ll push you as much as possible towards WiFri. I always insist the signal come in hardwired (Coax, Ethernet, whatever). but even with that I noticed Spectrum routers do not allow you to turn your WiFi off unless you kill all your internet with it (unplugging will halt both). Our solution was to use our own privacy geared open source router (Protectli) in place of theirs, and put our own WiFi device in that can be completely powered off with the push of a button. This involves us getting Coax/cable internet to their (Spectrum) modem, which then goes to OUR router, etc. Zero WiFi unless we are actively needing it on.
In our case with VOIP, Spectrum didn’t even give us a base station. (I guess they expected us to just stand next to our router every time we wanted to use our land line.. lol). What we did after confirming there was no signal coming in from the road, is run a long RJ11 phone cable from the Spectrum modem (Voice port) to the nearest (existing) house jack. At that point, the signal activates all of our other jacks since it travels along your existing copper wiring. As long as you’re not using cordless phones, no RF!