AT&T Pouts, Pulls Home 5G Service From NY State Over Law Requiring It Provide $15 To Poor People

To be clear up front, AT&T is a predatory telecom monopolist. It works tirelessly to lobby (and sometimes bribe) government for favorable treatment as it works tirelessly to undermine competition and eliminate state and federal oversight. It then miraculously exploits that lack of competition and oversight in the form of shoddy, sluggish, and very expensive service,

Should anybody in government then attempt to do absolutely anything about this problem, they’re then framed as radical extremists looking to kill “free market innovation.”

Case in point: the telecommuting and home education booms during peak COVID lockdowns demonstrated to everybody (once again) that U.S. broadband is overpriced and generally shitty. In response, New York in 2021 passed a law requiring that big ISPs (with over 20k users) offer low-income residents 25 Mbps broadband for $15.

It’s not a big ask. That kind of bandwidth is incredibly inexpensive to provision. But big ISPs like AT&T immediately sued. Telecoms hoped the case would wind its way to the Supreme Court where a MAGA-heavy judgeship would reverse the law. But the Supreme Court (too busy making presidents kings) recently declined to hear the case, allowing the law to go into effect.

I’m not entirely sure New York State (which I’m sure is quite busy with all manner of chaos under Trump 2.0) will even bother to enforce it. Actually holding big telecom accountable historically hasn’t been the U.S.’ strong suit. But in response AT&T has decided to pout like a full diapered toddler, and pull the company’s home 5G service out of New York State entirely.

AT&T’s home 5G “Internet Air” service is generally more affordable than the company’s fiber or traditional wireless offerings, because AT&T is trying to leverage 5G to make inroads against traditional cable companies. Once they’ve grabbed a bigger market share, they’ll ultimately get back to steadily raising rates on that service as well. Worth noting: FCC broadband maps (which tend to overstate coverage) suggest AT&T’s home 5G service already isn’t available across the majority of New York State.

In a statement, AT&T falsely claims that being forced to make broadband affordable to a small segment of poor people makes doing business in the state impossible:

“While we are committed to providing reliable and affordable internet service to customers across the country, New York’s broadband law imposes harmful rate regulations that make it uneconomical for AT&T to invest in and expand our broadband infrastructure in the state.”

Again, providing 25 Mbps broadband in the multi-gigabit era costs telecoms very little to actually provide. And this is all assuming New York State actually enforces the law, which isn’t clear.

Since AT&T couldn’t get the MAGA Supreme Court to kill New York State’s law, they’re pulling this little stunt to try and scare other states away from following NY’s lead. Do anything about our predatory pricing, AT&T warns, and we’ll make your state even less competitive.

Its a threat that will probably work. This is a familiar pattern in the U.S. Big telecom works overtime to monopolize broadband access and kill government oversight, resulting in high prices and muted competition. Somebody (usually Democrats) comes along proposing a band aid fix, and it’s immediately portrayed as radical extremism in a bid to scuttle it. Usually, telecom wins these fights.

Ultimately, most of the efforts to fix U.S. telecom are somewhat performative band aids. Neither state nor federal policymakers have the spine to go after the heart of the problem: consolidated monopoly power.

It’s worth noting that telecoms are about to get a whopping $42.5 BILLION in taxpayer subsidies courtesy of the 2021 infrastructure bill. And despite the fact these networks are taxpayer subsidized, AT&T and friends are also fighting tooth and nail against requirements they make these services actually affordable. Republicans also recently killed a COVID-era law providing a $30 broadband discount to poor Americans.

There’s a sustained effort to ensure telecoms can rip you off without pesky regulatory intervention. This is, as they say, why we can’t have nice things.