AT&T “complies” with law requiring cheap Internet by ending a service in NY

I remember when the US government paid AT&T to get fiber to the curb of American homes.
Then AT&T didn't. And then the US sued AT&T to get the money back and into the hands of US Americans. Wireless internet is an end-around having to fulfill those promises of a wide bandwidth future. And here is the evidence for that.

Sounds like it's time for a municipal broadband solution. If AT&T doesn't want the business, fine. Let's not force them to take our money.
- Chattanooga, Tennessee did something like that, but when they tried to expand outside of the city they were shut down
- They pulled their wireless home Internet service which mostly targets rural areas where companies like AT&T never laid fiber and have started abandoning their copper networks. It's a lot harder for smaller rural communities to do municipal broadband because the costs are much higher per household. Not impossible, but more of an uphill battle. In some GOP states it's even outlawed. In NY hopefully people can get grants for them.
- I have municipal fiber, it's great. Cheaper than Charter and 5x the speed.

These predatory companies make such a huff, like an abusive partner storming out while shouting "you don't know what you're missing!"
We do know, and we'll be fine. 👋

… business customers can keep any device they purchased at no charge," ATT said.
Gee how magnanimous (emphasis mine)

I don’t know if this AT&T service covered all of NY but for sake of my point I’m going to assume it covers most to all of NY. Obviously, not everyone would subscribe to AT&T either. I’m generalizing a bit to make a point.
There are approx 8.5 mil households in NY and 1.7 mil qualified for the previous affordable broadband law (couldn’t find an exact number for this current law).
If they charge $60 for the service that’s a potential total of $512,000,000 for NY.
If 1.7 mil get broadband for $15 that’s $25,500,000.
So AT&T is willing to give up a potential $487,000,00 from all other NY customers just to spite low income families.
Note: this is income before any AT&T expenses, just to be clear and fair.
Edit I was clear or the article wasn’t clear.
ATT is pulling 5G service from existing customers. They were given a 45 day window to find a new provider. I’m not talking about new construction.
they are not obligated to provide fiber at $15. Only broadband. I know there are still expenses with that, but there is much more broadband already available than fiber.
- Old cable guy here. The cost is in laying the lines. That cost is astronomical. AT&T did the math, said, "Fuck it. Not worth it."
  Call 'em evil, but they're not stupid.
  
  They aren’t laying lines though. It’s the Internet Air program which provides it through 5g.
  
  ISPs were already given a shitload of money to build out infrastructure, but they did the bare minimum and pocketed the rest instead.
  They need to be forced to build out a proper modern infrastructure at this point, imaginary money line be damned.
  
  AT&T came through and wired my neighborhood for fiber, all except for the 14 houses on my side of our street. I have AT&T copper in my yard but they don't offer sign up's anymore. They "completed" my neighborhood in 2022 and moved to the next.
- Note: this is income before any AT&T expenses, just to be clear and fair.
  Yes, exactly. By your numbers, their revenue would go down by almost 10% while their operating expenses remain the same. Is it plausible that they could have just lowered prices by 10% and still operated profitably all this time?

The US Government needs to stop dicking around with this neoliberal bullshit and just offer mobile and home Internet AS A UTILITY.
Use the existing USPS infrastructure and cut out all the bullshit ISPs and parasitical orgs that have been bloating themselves on taxpayers for decades, with zero improvements to users.
Bring back basic banking at USPS too.
- By USPS you mean post office? If so, I'm gonna need you to explain the "USPS infrastructure can be reworked to offer internet service" part. Not arguing, genuinely curious.
  
  You used to be able to do some banking at your local post office. You still can at some offices but it has largely been done away with. I believe they were referring to this and not USPS as an ISP.
  
  That's not what they said, but now that you mention it, both concern the regular transfer of information. USPS should be a utility broadband provider.
- Well I doubt that is going happen anytime soon. https://www.npr.org/2024/04/26/1247393656/net-neutrality-explained-fcc
  https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/federal-net-neutrality-reinstatement-3966433/
  FCC lacks authority to make that happen.
  "The recent ruling by the 6thCircuit Court of Appeals is one of the first major challenges to a federal agency action after the Chevron Doctrine—which gave deference to federal agency decision-making and findings—was overturned in the landmark Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision by the Supreme Court in June 2024."

Interesting, so it seems because ATT doesn't have fiber already setup in NY that they're pulling out. If more states did this, they probably wouldn't be able to handle pulling out, financially.

This is a good example of the "If you regulate/tax business, they'll just leave and you'll be sorry!" Ayn Rand fallacy.
All this means is that their business model was to gouge consumers, and being barred from gouging cheap internet for their poorest customers revealed that they were (and still are everywhere else) bad faith, dishonest, antisocial actors that have no interest in providing products and services for a reasonable margin.
Just as with any business that would exit a market, or billionaire that would leave the country to prevent taxation back into the commons that facilitated their wealth accumulation to begin with (a preliterate workforce, roads and utilities they disproportionately degrade with heavy use, etc) you demonstrate that you work against your own customers and your own people, so by all means, gtfo.

"AT&T's shitty business model can't provide quality service in NY, so they gave up."
- They decided to try fuck over the state govt and make them pay more with your tax dollars. Having failed, they are throwing a hissy fit and leaving, hopefully pissing off a bunch of people in the process.

popcorn
Don't mind me, just reading comments on my €10, 1gbps mobile connection in the train home from work.
- I’m enjoying this from my £28 a month 100Gb 5G contract that includes the cost of my iPhone.
  (and which is about to drop to £10 a month because I’ve paid off the phone)
  
  Nice! I ain't going to be seen with a normie-phone tho

I'm sure there will be a federal giveaway of money for internet providers to expand their networks to rural users to solve this problem....and they totally won't just keep the money, give ti to executives as bonuses, and refuse to do the work or anyhting.

I'm gonna put it this way: In an apartment complex I used to live in, AT&T service was terrible while Sprint (still a thing at the time) and Tmobile had okay service, and Verizon had great service.
One of my neighbors there was literally worked for AT&T as a telcom engineer or something, and was as such eligible to get free cell service from AT&T.
He paid the hundred bucks or whatever at the time for Verizon, instead of the literally free service he could get from his employer, because it was so terrible. Good riddance.

I don't see what the issue is here. They don't want to be treated as a utility, but if they stay in New York, they'll be regulated as a utility. They've dealt with it as a phone provider, and choose not to engage in the regulatory environment being put in front of them. It's a totally reasonable choice for a business to walk away from a market if the cost of doing business would exceed the profits made.
- Apple could have done the same thing with the EU. Either don’t put USB-C on their phones, or cease doing business in those countries.
  
  That's correct, and the fact that Apple caved from the 8-Pin Lightning connector to USB-C is one of many, many reasons I won't be buying anything Apple again, even second-hand. The lack of a headphone jack is just one more thing that made me certain of it. If I could find a micro-USB device with a headphone jack that serves as a phone, a pager, a calculator, and an audio (various formats - MP2A,MP3A,MP4A,WAV, FLAC, OGG, WMA, etc.) player, all my problems would be solved. I have looked into featurephones, I think I'm going to be moving in that direction next time I upgrade.

So, all those lines are leased to at&t by the state right? I feel like they could just revoke them and give everyone free Internet.
- Until a line breaks and you discover it costs money to have someone fix it. Or a router gets attacked be someone evil and now you don't have internet. Or ... There are a lot of costs to running internet.
  I don't know how the costs compare to what AT&T is charging. I doubt you do either.
  
  You could just add an extra tax to cover it and it would be cheaper than your Internet bill since it would be spread out amongst everyone.
  
  You think at&t is protecting you from hackers? ISPs are notorious for using crap routers and wifi devices which they charge an arm and leg for. ISPs literally had default passwords that can be guessed (many of them still do), used outdated protocols that were prone to brute force attacks or simply fail to compete with even the most basic DD-WRT, Open-WRT or other custom firmaware.
  
  Lemmy tends to think everything is free, has no clue about real-world costs.

Looks like a monopoly to me. That’s practically admitting that they believe consumers don’t have sufficient choice, and they’d rather not compete.