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Southeast Inyo residents urge county to press CPUC after widespread AT&T landline failures
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Summary
Residents at an Inyo County field meeting described multi-week AT&T landline outages that have left medically vulnerable people without reliable 911 access, and asked supervisors to file complaints with the California Public Utilities Commission and consider a board resolution demanding carrier compliance.
Residents of southeast Inyo County told supervisors they have endured months of landline outages and what they described as broken repair promises from AT&T, leaving some households without a dependable way to contact emergency services.
At the start of the public-comment period, one resident, thanked in the meeting as Robin, said her home lost service and technicians never showed up despite repeated calls. "I leave my medically fragile husband at home with no way to contact emergency services if something goes wrong," she said. Tony Kazane, who identified himself at the microphone, said he spent "at least 20 hours" on the phone trying to get service restored and that technicians failed to arrive after promises. "I literally cannot get anywhere on the phone," Kazane said.
Supervisor Griffith responded by outlining steps residents can take and encouraged them to file complaints directly with the California Public Utilities Commission so the regulator has a record of local outages. Griffith read a CPUC contact line for complaints and advised residents to submit individual reports through the CPUC website and hotline provided during the meeting.
Other speakers reported similar problems across small towns in southeast Inyo County, including multi-week outages, repeated transfers and long hold times with AT&T customer service, and local accounts that some landlines were physically cut then replaced in patterns residents described as suspicious. Fire and emergency personnel who spoke later in the meeting said patchy communications are slowing dispatch and that infrastructure improvements — including moving a volunteer-fire repeater to the top of a local tower and pursuing a BLM-permitted cell site — are planned to improve coverage.
Residents asked the board to consider writing to the CPUC on their behalf and to adopt a resolution insisting AT&T meet its carrier-of-last-resort obligations in rural areas. Supervisor Griffith said the county can and will assist with advocacy and reiterated that individual filings with the CPUC strengthen regulators' record of problems.
Next steps noted during the meeting: the board encouraged residents to file CPUC complaints and said staff would work with county supervisors to explore a formal letter or resolution; no formal county enforcement action against AT&T was announced during the session.
