CWA urges FCC to protect rural America and all consumers during the tech transition

The Communications Workers of America urged the FCC to reject recent proposals that would reduce consumer protections and education when carriers shut down their copper networks.

The FCC’s proposals come after the most recent tech transition order completely eliminated requirements to provide advance notice of copper retirement to retail customers, among other problems. Now Trump’s FCC wants to chip away consumer protections even further. “The consumer harm would be felt most acutely by elderly, low-income, and rural customers who disproportionately depend on legacy services for affordable, quality communications,” CWA’s comments read.

Four public interest and consumer advocates filed an appeal against the FCC’s November 2017 decision to eviscerate rules that protect consumers when incumbent carriers retire copper landlines. In that order, the FCC’s Republican majority eliminated advance notice requirements to retail customers for copper-to-fiber upgrades, deleted protections against de facto copper retirement due to lack of maintenance, and downgraded the definition of service to a community.

Links:

CWA: FCC takes three giant steps backward (Speed Matters, Nov. 17, 2017)

CWA comments to the FCC (FCC, Jan. 17, 2018)

Public interest, consumer advocates appeal FCC’s copper retirement order (Speed Matters, Dec. 13, 2017)