FRANKFURT, Ky. – ADT Corp. is lobbying Kentucky lawmakers to back off deregulating landline phone service in the state, Public News Service reports.
Senate Bill 99 would allow major phone carriers to stop providing landline service in parts of the state and the traditional service would not have to be provided to any new customers, the news service reports. The bill is now awaiting a vote in the House. Both ADT and consumer advocates want lawmakers to delay deregulation until after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has finished experimental trials on the switch to Internet protocol-based networks.
Steve Shapiro, ADT’s vice president of industry relations, maintains that discontinuing Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) could leave some Kentuckians without reliable access to life-safety alarm services.
“There is some likelihood that alarm systems and/or medical alert systems may not be able to send signals to ADT’s monitoring centers,” Shapiro told the news service.
AT&T has led the push for deregulation, claiming it needs the freedom to use money it currently spends on landline service to continue building its high-speed broadband infrastructure, according to the news service.
Shapiro says while ADT accepts the transition toward wireless, some of its customers who have made the change voluntarily have had troubles after the fact. “We understand we’re heading this way and technology does advance,” he says. “But, we have to be careful that we don’t legislate something before we have all the data knowing there are problems.”
