This is not good for eastern Kentucky where large areas do not (and not in my lifetime) have reliable cell service.

AT&T wants lawmakers to finish deregulation of phone service, this time in rural areas https://t.co/BoIEVzDnYF pic.twitter.com/3Ww3sCPnGL

— Bluegrass Politics (@BGPolitics) February 21, 2017

Senate Bill 10, unanimously approved Tuesday by the Senate Economic Development Committee, would end Kentucky Public Service Commission oversight of phone service in rural areas, where telephone exchanges have 15,000 or fewer homes.

The legislature previously ended PSC oversight of phone service in more populous areas at the request of AT&T, which said deregulation would encourage phone carriers to spend more money expanding high-speed broadband networks rather than maintaining outdated land lines.

The 2015 changes ended the legal obligation of phone carriers AT&T, Windstream and Cincinnati Bell to provide basic phone service in urban and suburban areas. The companies instead could provide phone service through a wireless plan or an Internet protocol-based technology, which converts voices into a digital signal that travels over the Internet and then is reconverted at the other end.

AT&T of Kentucky President Hood Harris returned Tuesday to tell the Senate panel that the 2015 changes have let his company expand new communications technology, including 4G service and fiber infrastructure, across much of the state. Not a single AT&T customer has lost an existing land line as a result of the changes, despite the concerns of some critics two years ago, Harris added.

Over the last 25 years, my landline service has devolved into utter crap and the landline based so-called “broadband service” is a freaking joke.