Reporting from Sacramento —
With subscribers increasingly dropping their land lines for wireless and Internet calling, California's telephone companies are lobbying the Legislature to let them abandon large portions of the state's 911 emergency calling system.
AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., which account for 90% of California's wired phones, and some smaller companies are backing a bill to change a 1995 law that requires them to keep so-called warm lines — capable only of calling a 911 center — for residences even after service has been disconnected.
The law applies regardless of whether service is cut for, say, failure to pay bills or is dropped voluntarily in favor of wireless-only phone service.
So far, state legislators unanimously support the telephone companies. The Senate passed the measure and, last week, the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee voted for it. Dropping 911 support for warm lines also means that all carriers would save a total of about $100 million a year, according to AT&T estimates.
Consumer advocates want at least some of the lines maintained, and many small law enforcement agencies oppose the changes.
"We were kind of getting the bum's rush," from lawmakers, said Charlie Cullen, the manager of a 911 center in Palo Alto who testified against the bill at a hearing of the Assembly committee last week. "We don't have the resources of the telcos."
AT&T lobbyist William H. Devine believes it's about time to make the change. "The requirement made sense when there was only one company providing local telephone service in a given geographical area," he wrote to the Assembly committee.
"Today, as consumers choose other communications alternatives, what was intended as a transition service with a public safety benefit has become a public safety burden that also imposes unnecessary costs on the state, local governments and telephone customers," he wrote.
The industry-sponsored bill would maintain warm-line connections to residences for 120 days after service is cut.
Consumer advocates and 911 system professionals acknowledge that warm lines could be cut for those who voluntarily end land-line service. But they want to slow the carriers' rush to jettison those lines to ensure no damage is done to the emergency network and that low-income people can call for help even if their phones are disconnected for nonpayment.
