South Los Angeles resident Shonte Dudley couldn’t come up with her mom, Mable Bush, utilizing the 92-year-old’s traditional telephone for a number of months.
Bush, who lives in South L.A. close to the Inglewood border, has stored the identical quantity with AT&T for almost 50 years. However someday in September 2024, her landline stopped working. Dudley, 52, referred to as the corporate, which instructed her somebody had stolen the copper wire from the landline cables.
Service was just lately restored, however Bush’s household spent months worrying as each the landline — which is hooked to the lady’s life alert service — and, at occasions, residence cameras that they used to watch motion inside the house have been down.
For eight months, Dudley spoke along with her mom by a caregiver’s cellphone.
She stated this was not the primary time providers had been down.
“Its been on once more, off once more,” Dudley stated. “If the telephone and cameras are down, now we have no approach to talk with Mommy. Now we have had this drawback earlier than, but it surely was by no means this lengthy.”
Dudley, who reached out to ABC7’s On Your Facet, stated the reporter referred to as the corporate on her behalf. A technician arrived at her mom’s residence the following day and, in just a few hours, fastened the landline cables.
Dudley — who says her landline and neighborhood streetlights even have been out periodically because of copper wire theft — believes it is just a matter of time earlier than the difficulty resurfaces for her mother.
“My mother’s neighbor who lives throughout the road, her telephone was out too. I’ve a number of folks from my church which can be in Compton and South Los Angeles with their telephones out,” Dudley stated.
Cora Brown, 72, instructed The Instances her landline had been down since September 2024. Brown, who lives along with her husband in South L.A. close to Compton, stopped paying the telephone invoice about three months in the past after their landline stopped working because of a copper wire theft.
“I don’t even keep in mind what number of occasions I referred to as AT&T. I’ve referred to as and referred to as and referred to as and referred to as,” Brown stated. The previous few occasions, she stated, she bought no reply. “They usually nonetheless ship the invoice.”
Brown obtained a invoice for $537.38 on Could 3.
“I’m sick of them,” Brown stated. “I’m contemplating switching.”
Dudley stated the payments additionally piled up whereas her mom’s landline was down. Bush was on auto pay for a time, paying $124 a month for the inoperable landline. Dudley took her mom off auto pay and stated AT&T despatched present playing cards to compensate for overpayment.
An AT&T spokesperson stated the corporate had seen a current enhance in copper wire theft throughout South L.A., a neighborhood with nearly 300,000 residents, in accordance with the Division of Metropolis Planning in 2021. AT&T’s outage web site experiences a number of landlines down in L.A. because of cable harm, with some lacking a scheduled restore date.
“Theft and vandalism of vital communications infrastructure are severe issues that disrupt important providers for our clients, public security and the neighborhood at massive. This can be a rising drawback within the space, and we’re working carefully with public security on our shared curiosity to fight copper theft in Los Angeles,” AT&T stated in an announcement. “We perceive how irritating copper theft is to our clients and it’s not a suitable buyer expertise. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
In 2024, the L.A. Metropolis Council created a activity pressure in partnership with the Los Angeles Police Division and the Bureau of Avenue Lighting to curb copper wire theft from public utilities. A complete of 82 folks have been arrested, and greater than 2,000 kilos of stolen copper wire have been recovered.
Previous to the duty pressure, the neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights and El Sereno noticed their streetlights stripped of copper wire, leaving a number of blocks in the dead of night. Metropolis politicians estimated the restore prices to exceed $17 million.
Copper wire, the spokesperson stated, is expensive and troublesome to supply.
“Traditionally, in South Los Angeles, copper theft is a giant difficulty,” he stated. “To people who are affected, we provide our AT&T telephone development merchandise that depend on our fiber wi-fi community, which is tougher to steal.”
AT&T’s fiber-optic community, which is put in underground, makes use of skinny, bundled glass fibers to offer web service through gentle waves, in accordance with AT&T.
Verizon’s Frontier community supplied Hacienda Heights residents the same fiber-optic service after copper wire thieves tampered with their landlines final yr.
Clients like Dudley say they aren’t involved in wi-fi expertise.
“There have been options, like putting in cameras to search out who’s stealing the copper, that folks have provide you with,” Dudley stated. “It doesn’t look like AT&T is making an attempt to provide you with an answer as a result of they need to do away with landline telephones. So, they hold elevating the worth and dragging their ft about making repairs.”
Regina Costa, telecom coverage director for the Utility Reform Community, a client advocacy group targeted on California utility providers, echoed Dudley’s sentiment.
“Individuals do need landlines,” Costa stated. “It’s ridiculous to suppose it might take clients that lengthy for a service restore. However that is a part of AT&T’s sport plan to scale back their complete service in California, to simply goal essentially the most worthwhile areas.”
AT&T filed an utility final yr with the California Public Utilities Fee in an effort to rid itself of its obligation as a provider of final resort. The corporate should present primary telephone service — which is often landline service — to any buyer asking for it in a selected space, in accordance with AT&T. The fee rejected the request.
“The fee is seeking to change the foundations for carriers of final resort, however within the meantime, AT&T has gone to the Legislature to attempt to get them to do it for them,” Costa stated. “They’re operating a invoice, AB 470, that will get rid of the duty to render these providers to its clients.”
AT&T didn’t touch upon its efforts to get rid of its landline providers.
Costa stated landlines are important throughout pure disasters. As AARP experiences, developments in telephones and GPS expertise, in addition to different elements, have improved 911 help for cellphones. However when storms or fireplace knock out electrical energy, copper-wire landlines proceed to work.
“I’m out within the woods in Sonoma County, the place one of many 2020 fires bought inside a mile from right here. We all know that, if the facility goes out, anybody with a [smartphone] goes to lose their service until they’ve a copper landline,” she stated. “So, these girls are just like the canary in a coal mine, they’re an indication of what’s actually occurring with this firm. And there are literally thousands of Californians which have skilled the identical factor.”
For Dudley, in the case of her mom, landline telephones present a way of security.
“There are folks of their 80s or 90s who don’t have somebody to advocate for them. With no telephone service, you may solely cease by and see them,” she stated. “However what if that particular person falls in the course of the evening? What if the home catches on fireplace? Or a fuel leak. It’s very harmful.”
AT&T is providing as much as a $5,000 reward for particular and detailed info that results in the arrest and conviction of copper cable thieves or the tried sale or buy of stolen copper cable from AT&T within the Los Angeles space, the spokesperson stated. Tipsters may name AT&T World Safety and Investigations at (800) 807‐4205.
