AT&T filed with the FCC on May 20, 2026, to discontinue copper landline service at 360 California wire centers by June 2027, affecting roughly 199,000 customers and triggering formal opposition from the CPUC, Marin County, Berkeley, and San Francisco — with the preemption fight over California's Carrier of Last Resort rules as the central legal battleground.

AT&T, operating as Pacific Bell Telephone Company, filed applications with the Federal Communications Commission on May 20, 2026, seeking to discontinue legacy copper landline (POTS) service at 360 California wire centers, effective on or after June 1, 2027. The filings would affect approximately 184,000 residential and 15,000 business customers statewide — the first time the company has sought federal cover to exit a state-regulated obligation this comprehensively.

The strategic hinge in AT&T's filing is a petition asking the FCC to preempt California's Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) rules, which require telecom providers to offer basic telephone service to all customers in their territory. The California Public Utilities Commission filed comments opposing that preemption on June 15, 2026, and is running a parallel rulemaking to modernize COLR obligations — a direct signal that Sacramento intends to fight this on its own turf regardless of what the FCC decides.

AT&T's economic argument: only 3% of households in its California territory still use traditional landlines, and maintaining the copper network costs roughly $1 billion annually. Its proposed substitute is AT&T Phone – Advanced (AP-A), a VoIP product priced at $45 per month. Critics note that VoIP depends on electricity and broadband — neither of which is reliable during the wildfires and earthquakes that define California's emergency landscape.

Bay Area governments have mobilized. Marin County's Board of Supervisors formally opposed AT&T's COLR relief request, estimating more than 28,800 county households would be affected. Berkeley City Council filed its own opposition, specifically citing risks to residents during wildfires and seismic events, where cellular networks are also unreliable. California's Office of Emergency Services has reported that more than one million 911 calls annually are placed via landline statewide.

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed a resolution urging the CPUC to ensure consumer protections are in place before any approvals are granted, though the precise resolution number and date could not be independently confirmed against primary Legistar records by publication time. The original draft cited Resolution 132-24 (March 29, 2024), but that resolution concerns an unrelated matter; the correct legislative action's file number and date remain unverified.

The FCC extended its public comment window: initial comments were due July 7, 2026, with reply comments due July 22, 2026. Whether the commission sides with AT&T's cost argument or with California's insistence on a reliable safety net will set a national precedent for how utilities exit copper-era obligations. The filing that hasn't dropped — and the number to watch — is the FCC's ruling on the preemption petition, which determines whether Sacramento gets to set the terms at all.