What Happens When Your Phone Network Fails?

Fun fact: unlike traditional copper lines, most new “land line” phone technologies don’t run on their own power. When the power goes out, so does the phone line—and your ability to call for help. It’s even more dangerous for those in rural areas. A severed copper line can isolate a remote community from the outside world. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the small customer base and the high cost of repairs means that phone companies don’t have an incentive to replace—or even service—damaged copper in these areas. Instead, companies have pushed to offload these communities onto cheap, less reliable technologies such as wireless “landline” services and VoIP. The result is a one-two punch against marginalized communities who need access the most.

This public safety catch-22—you can’t call for help at exactly the moment you’re most likely to need it, especially if you’re in a community that needs it the most—is one of the many reasons Public Knowledge, along with 28 other public interest groups [including the Benton Foundation], is calling for the FCC to include backup power requirements for consumer premises equipment (CPE) in their ongoing tech transition rulemaking. The phone companies, unfortunately, don’t see any problem at all with the way they do business. The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance (ITTA) recently argued that there’s “virtually no consumer demand for” backup power solutions—and that when it is offered, “in nearly all cases, customers decline the option.” However, what’s more likely is that:

this phone technology is relatively new, so
consumers don’t fully realize that their new phone network will stop working when the power goes out, and thus
underestimate the risk of losing service in an emergency.