The Disappearing Dial Tone: Why Basic Customer Service is Now a Premium Feature

Tornadoes ripped through Central Indiana last night, leaving wide swaths of the region without power. In times like these, communication becomes a lifeline, literally. Yet for too many families, that lifeline has frayed. My parents, both older adults, lost their landline service. When I attempted to report the outage to AT&T, I found myself in a familiar maze of voice prompts, unable to reach a human. Eventually, the automated system promised service would be restored within four days. They also offered to send a technician, for $99.

Telecom companies increasingly treat in-home support as a luxury service, rather than a baseline responsibility. During a declared emergency, when systems are under pressure and vulnerable people are at risk, it should not take four days and a credit card to restore a phone line. Yet this is the new normal.

Large telecommunications providers have begun a concerted push to retire copper-based landlines. The official reason is outdated infrastructure and maintenance costs. The unofficial reason is simpler: profit. Supporting analog lines is expensive, and older users, many of whom are on fixed incomes, don’t generate enough revenue to justify that support. Companies are accelerating what amounts to a slow-rolling obsolescence campaign, incentivizing or outright requiring customers to “upgrade” to digital services that are often less reliable during power outages.

Even basic customer service has become a transactional event. Gone are the days when a concerned voice on the other end of the line could check your neighborhood status or escalate a ticket. Today’s systems are designed not to serve, but to deter, optimized for efficiency, not empathy. And if you're among the unlucky few who still rely on copper landlines for their medical devices, emergency calls, or peace of mind, you're treated like a relic.

Accountability evaporates when companies prioritize automated containment over human connection. During disasters, that approach becomes not just frustrating, but dangerous. Local residents trying to check on loved ones, elderly individuals with no cell phones, and caregivers coordinating logistics, all rely on infrastructure that is quietly being dismantled.

Public service commissions need to take note. Consumer protections for legacy landline users must be reinforced, not eroded. Utility-level services should not be allowed to opt out of their responsibilities just because maintaining physical infrastructure eats into margins. If a company offers a phone line, it should work—especially when people need it most.

This is not simply about one storm, one city, or one customer service call. This is about whether we believe access to communication is a right or a perk. If storms are becoming more frequent, service should be getting more responsive, not less.