Be afraid. Be very afraid. I knew Copperpacolypse was coming for all of us. It came for me on the day my kidney stones were to be removed. You wouldn’t want to have been there.

You almost certainly don’t know that there is a giant upcoming technical disaster—in the name of progress—that apparently can’t be stopped. You aren’t ready for it. You may not even know it is coming. But AT&T is going to turn off all landline phones, starting next June and wrapping it up by 2029. Copperpacolypse.

For example, the Internet went out at the Kaiser Walnut Creek Hospital went out at 7:30 am, just as I arrived for a procedure. Nothing. No schedule, no check-in, no medical records on the screens. They could still take patient vitals and treat emergencies. Pre-existing conditions? Medications? Allergies? What happened last night? No longer available.

Operating a hospital under these conditions was, at best, vexing. Generators exist for power backup. There is no such thing as Internet backup.[1]

That was alarming enough, but the phones went out at the same time. “Why did our landlines go out?” asked hospital professionals who have no idea that AT&T and their own tech staff have sold them out.

There isn’t a landline anywhere in the vast facility. Various department had to use runners to communicate. The power was on, the PA continued to operate, but since there were no internal phones, the PA announced clearly had problems finding out what to say.

Everything at the hospital is VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol), which means an Internet cutoff is a complete cutoff of all forms of communication.

Because of location and construction materials from decades ago, the cellphone coverage inside the hospital is spotty. That is normally taken care of by using Internet. The phone directories are online, but they don’t include cellphones.

So, if you don’t know the personal number of the PA announcer, someone, from a short-staffed group, has to run over with messages to a place they’ve never been because they normally just call.

Yes, AT&T now has permission to turn off the Plain Old Telephone Service in California, and so it is charging a king’s ransom for existing lines, and, with the permission of the Public Utilities Commission, no longer installs new landline phones.

Don’t worry, says AT&T; we can handle all phone calls with VOIP or cellular service. “We’re the phone company. We don’t care we don’t have to.” If there is lousy cell coverage and no Internet, get a pair of tin cans and some string, or just walk to the nearest hospital in an emergency.

Speaking of which, how good is the emergency service going to be at a hospital that has no phone services? This isn’t the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. Keeping a few landlines in the house would be incredibly expensive—and supportive of the hospital’s mission, if not it’s bottom line.

As for the rest of the public, here are the legal requirements for backup. Landline phone exchanges: 72 hours. Customer site VOIP 5 hours—but useless without Internet service. Cellphone switching centers: 24 hours. Meaningless, since cell towers are only required to have 8 hours. If you believe cellphone companies have backup power for one more minute than is legally required, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you. Or a pile of dead bodies in the event of an earthquake or fire, both of which, thank goodness, never happen in California.

If we still had landlines, we’d have three days of service in a disaster. As it is now, since money matters more than lives, we will have 48 hours of news conferences held by the cell providers promising that “service will be restored real soon now.” [2]

Ready or not, landline shutoff starts in November, and will be complete in 2029. Britain’s end of life POTS shutdown is in 2027, so we’ll have two years to contemplate Copperpacolypse.

I have already predicted the likely consequences: Promises Broken: Copperpocalypse Redux March 2024 and Copperpacolypse: Farewell Copper―Y2K Redux in the Making August  2023

AT&T is telling us “We will take the 150 years of monopoly profits you guaranteed us thank you. Clearly, we don’t owe you anything for all that money. You can bend over double and kiss your ass goodbye.”

California is actually subject to wildfire, earthquakes and floods. Mountainous terrain and large rural populations mean cellphones are not a viable alternative. Twenty-five miles from San Francisco, in my hilly hometown of Orinda, my cell reception is marginal without an Internet connection. Things of course are worse in the Santa Cruz Mountains or the Sierra Foothills.

According to the state, 30% of rural homes have no broadband or cable television.

Don’t wait. Let’s start a GoFundMe campaign to raise money so the officers of AT&T can attend the funerals of people the company callously cut off from the world.

And still it seems California is not bending its knee fast enough. “Seeking to override state authorities and cut landline service across California, utility giant AT&T filed a federal court complaint against California regulators and submitted two petitions to the Federal Communications Commission, the latest volley in its years-long battle to withdraw the service.”

Susan Santana, AT&T’s president for California, said the company had been working with the state’s policymakers and legislators for years to stop providing landline service, “unfortunately to no avail.” Consumer advocates and others say landlines are key in disasters or in areas with poor cellular reception.

I don’t know if it has done so formally, but I assume AT&T has carefully weighed the cots of death suits versus the saving of money. Sounds like the Ford Pinto Case, where a $9 bolt could have prevents Pinto gas tanks from blowing up, but an internal report said the death suits would be less expensive than fixing spending $20 million to fix the problem.[3]

$9 bolts, calculated (according to one internal report) less than law suits. Ford vps at meetings. Save 20 million

Ford estimated that settling negligence lawsuits related to the Pinto would cost $49.5 million, while fixing the safety issues would have cost about $137 million. This cost-benefit analysis led them to prioritize settlements over safety improvements. Fuel System Integrity Program Financial Review”

Grimshaw alone 217, reduced by a judge to 35 million

Iowa flat as a pancake (not really)

Here I go again. I won’t let your name be within 100 miles of this article. But I do wonder about corporate manslaughter. It didn’t come up in the (it seems to vaguely apt) decision  In Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company (119 Cal.App.3d 757, 174 Cal.Rptr. 348) in which it appears that Ford’s Fuel System Integrity Program Financial Review essentially said suits would likely total $49.5 million, while fixing the safety issues would have cost about $137 million including the famous $9 bolt. Pretty cold-hearted analysis. After an hour so of reading the decision, the appeals court and the legal analysis in the wikipedia  article  , it appears to me that ford officials, up to the level of vice president, traded repair cost estimates versus likely lawsuit expenses, and decided profits were more important and less expensive than killing people. The crystal ball on the second part of that estimate was clearly cloudy. 

Which brings me to my real question. I am going to write about AT&T (we’re the phone company, we don’t care, we don’t have to) attempting to tear out all the landlines in California. Screw you and the horse you rode in on if you live in a rural or mountainous area. Fire, earthquake or flood (all predictably likely events in California)? You should have moved next door to our executives in million-dollar urban condos.

Anyway, the nub of my question is: is it corporate manslaughter to place profits above saving lives? I’m sure a century of state-granted monopoly profits make no difference. 

I don’t expect you to do any research. Again, no connection between you and the opinion, which I will present as my own. I just don’t want to look like a complete moron for trusting the Internet (not AI summaries, but actual Internet sites) in my suggestion that this might be a little more than “who gives a fuck”

Paul “why yes, asking for free legal advice on a holiday weekend” Schindler

[1] Well, maybe. I know some corporations who make sure they have power feeds from two different substations. I also know what happens when those two service lines accidentally get interconnected, but that’s another story. I assume, at some expense and difficulty, a hospital could have two different Internet lines, coming from different directions.

[2] If, of course, anyone can see or listen to those events.

[3] There is no engineer in America who will ever write a report like that again. All reports will be oral