Mayors slam AT&T for slow Internet, long phone outages

Enlarge / An AT&T truck in 2000. (credit: Getty Images | Tim Boyle)

AT&T is failing to provide fast Internet service to many customers and is doing a poor job maintaining old copper phone networks, mayors and other elected officials from California and Nevada said yesterday. The officials are taking the side of workers in a union's ongoing labor dispute with AT&T, saying that the carrier has cut jobs while letting customers suffer long network outages.

"All too many Californians and Nevadans have waited far too long for AT&T to build the high-speed broadband infrastructure promised to them," the officials said in a letter to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. "Not only is AT&T failing to provide access to 21st-century high-speed connections to many communities, but it is also not maintaining the copper lines that are vital to landline phone access, 911 and emergency services and basic Internet service."

The letter to AT&T was signed by dozens of elected officials from California and Nevada, including the mayors of Reno, Nevada; Santa Clara, Daly City, Chula Vista, Emeryville, Berkeley, and Arvin, California. It was also signed by Los Angeles City Council members Mike Bonin and Curren Price, California Sens. Jim Beall and Josh Newman, and California State Assembly member Tom Daly. Arvin Mayor Jose Gurrola said in a press release that "AT&T has reneged on its responsibility to customers in more rural areas like Arvin."

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments