AT&T, Cal Advocates Reach Partial Deal on California Copper Retirement
The two agreed companies should be able to decommission infrastructure in exchange for fiber deployment commitments.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2026 – AT&T and the consumer advocacy office of California’s telecom regulator have reached a partial agreement on future copper retirement rules.
The California Public Utilities Commission is looking to update its carrier of last resort (COLR) rules, which govern when an incumbent telecom provider can decommission its infrastructure in a given area. AT&T has unsuccessfully tried to relieve itself of COLR status in the state amid a nationwide effort to turn off its aging copper network.
A CPUC staff proposal, which hasn’t yet been adopted by the commissioners, would allow COLRs to apply to relinquish COLR status in areas with sufficient competition from other companies providing wireline broadband and/or mobile service. COLRs would after five years have to start deploying broadband to locations where they still had COLR status.
AT&T and other companies that operate legacy infrastructure in the state are not excited about that requirement, but the carrier and the CPUC’s Public Advocates Office (Cal Advocates) agreed on some extra provisions that they both say would improve the new rules.
Their joint proposal, submitted Feb. 13, would allow an ISP to relinquish COLR status if it committed to deploying fiber to 20 percent of an area’s locations. Under the proposal an eligible area would be capped at 1 million locations, and would have to be 80 percent covered with gigabit wireline broadband.
“The projected expansion of fiber competition promises substantial consumer savings and a durable shift away from monopoly markets,” Cal Advocates wrote. The CPUC recently published a study finding competition among cable and fiber ISPs brought prices down; exactly how much was disputed by the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School.
In total, Cal Advocates said AT&T would have to commit to more than 1 million new fiber passings in the state to fully take advantage of the proposal’s lower relinquishment threshold.
Companies taking the path outlined in the proposal would have to offer service through the California Lifeline program for some amount of time. The two sides couldn’t come to an agreement, as Cal Advocates wanted the requirement to be permanent and AT&T wanted it capped at five years.
In places not covered by the proposal, meaning those where fiber or cable has been deployed to fewer than 80 percent of locations, Cal Advocates added that “the Commission should enable a COLR to engage in local negotiations with alternative providers who will deploy fiber and to submit those proposals to the Commission as an application.”
“More work remains to be done to expand affordable broadband services in heavily rural areas, but as a starting point the proposal begins the modernization process,” Ernesto Falcon, a broadband program manager at Cal Advocates, wrote in a Friday blog post.
AT&T also wanted the presence of fixed wireless and satellite to count in favor of COLR withdrawal, and to avoid a mandate to eventually deploy broadband to locations where it could not relinquish COLR status.
The company argued that could jeopardize California’s $1.86 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment allocation. The Commerce Department is telling states they can’t regulate the terms or rates of broadband service if they want access to the funding. California is one of just five states that have yet to receive Commerce approval on their BEAD spending plan.
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