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VoIP And Cell Phones Eroding Traditional Telecoms
Lullabye_Muse writes "Yahoo! reports that telecoms in Europe and U.S. are losing in response to people switching their home phones for cellphones and dial up to cable modems. More info on specific VoIP discussed in latter part of article. The trend seems to becoming widespread, I guess 10 years and all the old wires are gonna start to be taken down."
I still keep my land-line operational, though... I'm beginning to wonder why.
Sigs cause cancer.
Can't say I am sorry for the companies that were once monopolies to finaly die.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Wire will never bbe taken down, since they are the major source of broadband. Here in Mexico Telmex the only real tephone company has invested heavely on DSL and cable modems are virtually a thing of the past.
Let the telcoms die. I haven't had a land-line phome for 6 months, and I don't miss it.
Of course, cell-phone coverage could be bett--
CALL ENDED
Time: 2:10
Never will copper be phased out by wireless, the old telcos may lose dominance, but until the reliability is there (powerouts, national emergencies, etc), most simply won't switch over to a fully landline free solution.
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
Rewiring all buildings to optical fibers or ethernet is just too damn costly, especially since ADSL (or its future cousins) is cheap and works.
Well I can get a cell phone for as much as my monthly landline service. Why would I bother with a fixed line?
Add in the fee to get connected, if you move a lot you can save hundreds by having a cell phone.
Currently the long distance plan I have, it doesn't yet make sense to switch to a cell phone.
In the mean time Robert X Cringley thinks that they should turn the old lines into video streaming conduits for on-demand programming.
Seems like a good idea, but there is no way the telcos could sit down and think of doing that. They just aren't that innovative. Otherwise, they'd have been on VoIP awhile ago.
Because, if there's any industry that's bent over backwards to inspire customer loyalty, it's the telecoms. ...
Yet another example of innovation sweeping the market out from under an industry that's too busy screwing its consumers to notice.
Currently, I don't have a traditional wired phone at the house. There isn't much of a need since everyone at the house has a cell pone.
For me, my job requires a mobile phone and they pay the bill. I'm not even home often enough to worry about having a land line.
I would have gotten one anyway, just for the security, but the phone company wants $80~ (US) to simply turn the bastard on.
Now, if the telecom industry was to try to lure me back, it would simply be with affordability.
I'm not even going to start on all the things I hate about the telecom service, but whats with charging not to have long distance? Someone tell me the logic in this one.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I work for Canada's largest telecom, and this is something that we've been watching for the last few years. VOIP is being launched for business customers all over the country, and even consumer trials are being held at the moment. I'm not sure that landlines will completely disappear, but the impact to the old style telco is pretty evident. Ah, move with the times, I always say!
Most copper installed since the 50's is still being used. In NYC, some of the original lead-jacketed, paper-insulated copper phone cabling is still in service. LEC's (Local Exchange Carriers) should take this opportunity to replace their ancient, widespread infrastructure. Imagine how telco's could dominate the boadband market if they could bring fiber to all their customers.
Contrary to most people think, the major Internet backbones are not anywhere near capacity. Telcos have NO shortage of bandwidth. Their problem is their inability to push the bandwidth people demand over analog copper lines. Fiber solves bandwidth problems and distance problems.
-DJ
Does anyone know if one needs to pay for the phone service in order to keep DSL? I have DSL but feel like switching to cell phone for phone needs and I'd rather keep my DSL provider (worldcom)
With the introduction of the relatively inexpensive CDMA service in India by Reliance, the number of households that have only cellphones is on the rise. This is true especially for young people setting up new homes. What makes this service even more attractive is that it makes nationwide calling very affordable when compared to the regular landline service.
-- Off to build a bridge between the twin peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
I've had Vonage now for about 3 weeks and have mixed feelings on it. I've already had a few outages, and while all the features are nice (Such as the network availability forwarding, where it forwards calls to my cell phone if the voice terminal isn't online), my cable inet service seemed a whole lot more reliable before I got it.
Then again, it may be just the way my network is setup - seems like once or twice the problem has been with my firewall (Smoothwall) just 'locking up' during a 10+ minute long call.
All in all, if I can iron out these minor problems, I think it will be a lot nicer then a traditional landline, and the price is right. I'm just not at the phase where I trust it whole-heartedly, so I'm glad I have my cell as backup
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
Of course there comes a time when the monopoly no longer makes and it will fade out. Most customers will benefit but soome (eg. less profitable customers in outlying areas) will lose out.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The trend seems to becoming widespread, I guess 10 years and all the old wires are gonna start to be taken down
What about DSL?
Not everyone will have FITL (fiber-to-the-curb), so the existing copper lines will still have a use.
Chip H.
First, the U.S. telecoms are not "losing." I work for one and it is making more money than ever. Sure land line usage has decreased for the first time ever, but revenue is up as more homes embrace broadband. And don't forget who owns the wireless companies.
Second, the "old wires" are not "gonna start to be taken down." There is a billion dollar infrastructure buried under the U.S. that's going nowhere. And a century of tweaking has made it rock solid. A new generation growing up on wireless phones won't appreciate the five nines of reliability that the PSTN provides, but most of the population is nowhere near ready to give up the phone line that stays up during power failures.
That said, the future is certainly IP based. The phone company knows that and will be well positioned to be the dominant provider. The RBOCs and the cable companies are the only players likely to survive in the broadband and IP-based future.
I'm quite sure that internet access is the main reason we still have so many home phones after all.
Cable isn't that widespread in Europe, satelite links are quite expensive and they require a telephone line for upload. Access via power lines never really took off. There is nothing which beats 2 copper wires running to your house in terms of speed, reliability and price.
Wireless LANs bringing internet access to entire blocks reduces the amount of home phones, since only one POTS is needed to get it online, but (at least over here) we won't see telcos going down the drain before ISPs are offering (cheaper than telco) area-wide wireless access for their services.
I don't need a home phone at all, but my favorite monopolistic telco offers me DSL for a reasonable price. They also charge me for a mandatory phone connection using the same line, but it's still much cheaper than their closest competitor.I don't read replies by ACs.
I just moved. When I was living in an area that was kind of far out of town, I did not have cell coverage at my house. Now, we just moved and we do. So, no landline phone! My wife and I just use our cell phones. Of course, we still have our old numbers which are in a different area code. That freaks people our when we order pizza.
We used to have cable modem and used 802.11b for the past few years. Now, we have a neighbor who has a wireless network called "Linksys" with no WEP key set. So, we don't pay for internet anymore either. I suppose the day they put a wep key on it or shut it down, I will order either cable or DSL (we actually can get either where we live.)
We still have to pay for our cell phones and for electricity, but we're saving like $200 a month without phone or broadband. (Math check: Our old cable company wouldn't sell us broadband without digitial cable and the total price was like $100 a month. Plus, phone bill including long distance since the cell phones wouldn't work from the house and all our relatives live in other states.)
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Actually a real T1 uses 2 pair, one for transmit, and one for receive. A T1 delivered by HDSL uses a single pair up to the smart jack, but it's still two pair (1,2,4,5 on the RJ45/RJ48).
And if you're actually in a CO, trying to trace a circuit between DSX panels, there's a fifth wire, the locator wire, wired in as part of the cross connect. It provides a neat function - when you insert a looping plug in the dsx, lights on both DSX panels come on to tell you where the circuit is.
Sig??? I don't need no stinkin Sig!
We just switched over to VOIP with Time Warner, who also sends us cable TV and Road Runner. They get a big check from us every month. It seems to work about the same except that all those features on the phone (Caller ID etc.) now work. Oddly enough, my old local company sent me a letter yesterday offering about the same deal. Why didn't they send me the offer while I was still a customer?
It reminded me of something that happened a few years ago at work.
We used to subscribe to a Derwent patent publication that listed new patents in the pharmaceutical industry. It costs about $30K a year. I called and asked if they could give us a little break on the price. "No Way," they said. So we cancelled the subscription. A few weeks later, they call up and said that there was a mistake and they could give it to us for only $800/yr. I said "No Way." Pricing in this information busness is funny stuff.
*gasp* businesses adapting to new technology!
You can complain all you want about a cellphone being more expensive, The way I see it is, when I want to make a call to an out of state on my cellphone it's just a normal call, but on a landline i have to worry about per minute costs that are very high, and start being high immediately, rather than after a certain number of minutes. It's fairly easy to make a cellphone you'r only phone, just make sure your plan has enough minutes for how much you plan on using it. And if that's not enough for you, keep in mind that most companies dont use up minutes for calls to other people using the same service, not just free calls at off hours. I shut off my landline almost 2 years ago after i noticed that for the same price, my cellphone provided a lot more features, and a lot more convenience.
I still need da phone line for my DSL. Cable is way too unreliable in my area. The folks that run it use dodgy amplifiers apparently. Phone line infrastructure was terribly expensive to put up and maintain, and it has lots of other uses (DSL etc). They will never tear it down voluntarily.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
The problem here is that right now I get my internet access from... SBC, same as my phone company. In a better world the ISPs would have a financial incentive to back VoIP against the phone companies' objections, and there could be a huge corporate battle ending up in consumer benefit. Doesn't really work when the ISP and the phone company are one and the same.
I guess Comcast (or your local internet-via-cable company) could start bundling VoIP with their broadband access, competing with the DSL people who already offer those bundles. Makes sense to me, although I still wish the providers of the services were different groups....
can't think any more... brain hurts... color scheme too ugly...
"TV is great! Every New Year's I make a resolution to watch more TV." - Ann Coulter
has anyone here tried to establish a dialup connection over VOIP?
Like those people who run emulators within emulators within emulators, something like this would have a pretty high geek-chic factor.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The only reason I believe that the old pots system is here to stay is that it just works. While I have never tried digital telephone through a cable company, I think it requires you have power. I could be wrong so if so, please correct me. With that being said, the pots system worked during an outage. That is incredibly important.
Another reason the land lines will not be going anywhere is that there are some places that wireless phones just do not work. An example of this is in Spring Valley, Ca, which is part of the San Diego County. I had a wireless phone that just would not work in that area. I had verizon at the time, so who knows, it might work now.
Also, remember during 9/11 how the cellphone networks were not prepared for the load? Well, I am fairly sure this would not be a problem for the old pots system. Like before, not positive but pretty sure.
I still have a land line because I use speakeasy DSL. Great ISP by the way.
Brendan
I'm actually surprised that voice modems haven't become popular and that answering machine capabilities haven't become standardised on computers the way faxing has. I've had modems that worked as answering machines before over the past decade, but the software was always a third-party application that wasn't integrated with the OS like faxing, and it never became one surprisingly. I presume the main reason for this is because people would tend to have a dedicated data line for the modem and have their voice lines separate. But I also think another reason is that people tend to use the voicemail of their mobile phones now more than answering machines.
With the popularity of broadband, dial-up modems on computers are simply becoming an option used more for faxes or for using a dial-up connection when the broadband connection is down. Macs used to support audio line-in from the modem port, but they dropped that feature for some reason, and it seems to have gone unnoticed. Having an audio line-in function for a dial-up modem would be a precursor to using it as an answering machine. One of the problems of having a fax is that people usually use a dedicated line for one rather than having the same number for both voice and fax. That's two phone bills, and there's no reason for it to be that way. I always thought that computers would merge voice, fax, and data into one phone line. But if you use a mobile phone for voicemail, then you won't be able to link it to your computer.
The main advantage you now see from the breakup is competition, however feeble, and lower pricing.
Oh, and customer service has always sucked. It's not a new phenomenon.
I happen to like my landline service. When I'm gone or sleeping, absolutely no one can annoy me with their problems, requests, or irritating want to keep in touch, just not on a same-room basis. Also, I find there's something irresistably sexy about being completely lost, I might actually have to [gasp] talk to a real person and not a vibrating piece of cancer plastic making friends with and sterilizing my balls. Slashdot probably isn't the correct place to talk about wanting to be disconnected sometimes, but what are YOU going to do about it eh?
-- Checking emails and kicking cheats `till the day I die.
Now you think 'poor poor big company' because they're forced to service those remote areas and now they aren't getting the growth they have anticipated? WRONG...
These companies are not forced to stick to old technologies. They have decided to stick to technologies for as long as they can, but the telco company could be offering much better solutions to everyone but they were 'comfortable' with the situation. They wanted to milk the old technology for all it had. Instead of spending all the resources trying to install new technologies in everyone's homes, they were trying to squish the new technology. Remember all those attempts at lobbying for internet taxes and things? Those were attempts to make internet more expensive than typical communications so they wouldn't have to change their ways. Their thoughts were, "Why install new technology when we haven't made our projected return on your current technology?". The answer is obviously, "To save your company from being obsoleted by the companies installing the new technologies."
This is a paradigm shift, this is not the death of an industry. I've been seeing small peerings of VoIP on websites, Vonage has been leading the charge, and now I'm seeing Comcast, AT+T, MCI, and Verizon all blasting their VoIP offerings all of a sudden. The companies aren't dying, they are just switching their technology. Verizon has the DSL network and is parsing it out to all these DSL providers. Comcast has it's network. Now the othr telecomms are getting in on the act and catching up to Vonage. They know they have to join this wave or die, but of course they will join up and flourish.
What's great about this VoIP revolution is that this frees the phone number and service from the physical network. You buy the IP first, then connect your VoIP to it. And you can switch VoIPs and keep your number. Creating layers of technology each with different tasks opens up possibilities not seen before and will be a huge boob to the customer.
The telecomms won't be at the front, they aren't leaders, but they are never far behind. They'll charge a little more, try to buy up Vonage and the other companies, then consolidate into powerhouses again. Vonage might grow big enough to be a new telecomm, like T-Mobile and Cingular almost are.
My prediction is that it won't be until the NEXT revolution that small companies and mom and pop telecomms pop up and provide kickass service and competition. That revolution will be long range wireless networking.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Most customers will benefit but soome (eg. less profitable customers in outlying areas) will lose out.
Hahahaha! I take it you don't live in an outlying area.
My exchange was one of the last in NORTH AMERICA to be moved off an old switch that used in band signalling. While some might understand this provided much amusement in my youth, we didn't get private lines until about 1992 if I remember right. The line quality is BAD here.
Dispite millions? being promised and provided for broadband development in Rural areas by the Canadian government, my estimated date for DSL arrival is on a geological timeframe. Luckily, the terrain here is such I might be able to get a 802.11 link to a benevolant soul in the next year or so.
Where do I live? About 30 minutes outside a major center. Not the middle of nowhere. Basic service is what the law says I get, and basic service is what I get.
Here'e to hoping for the ability to get an affordable cell-based broadband connection. Two way satellite is still out of the question.
..don't panic
"Unfortunatly, I doubt we'll ever see benevolent monopolies (or even corporations) ever again."
If i had the points i had last night, i'd mod you through the roof. This is the most insightful and true statement i've seen today.
i hate to be a defeatist, but fucking christ, who isn't trying to fuck you these days? It's not enough to have a chalet on some remote lake anymore is it? It's not enough to have 7+ figures in the bank is it?
i just grow more and more disheartened that there are no truly benevolent companies in monopolistic positions these days. i won't glorify the "good ol' days" and sure as hell, there were sharks in those days, but i can't help but feel that i'm getting fucked, about to get fucked, or have the research to realize that, yeah, i am getting fucked by some company.
Shit, maybe i'm just out of touch, but i'd hoped that by the age of 26 i'd not be so goddamn cynical and have to watch my back at every fucking turn....like maybe, just maybe, some corps just might give a fuck that i live to next year and buy the next edition. Know what i mean?
Fuck, i already sound like my grandfather and at least he got be 50 before he was an ass about everything.
I had been using T*mobile for two years. This past year I started using text messaging and the AOL IM feature a lot more, bringing my cell phone costs upwards to $200-$300 thanks to overage fees. Ofcourse, the highest they could sell me was 1000, which I would quickly go over before halfway through the month.
I also tried to get them to automatically take the monthly charges from my Visa check card (same card I used for manual billing) and every month they would fail to debit the account, and they would shut off my phone until I gave em a ring to give them the same credit card number they were supposed to be automatically billing.
Now, I hadn't switched providers up to this point because T*Mobile offers the best coverage in my area, and I knew if I switched, not only would I have to get one of those newer shoddy flip phones (yuck) but it most likely wouldn't get any signal where I live.
About the end of June, they once again shut my phone off, and I figured maybe if I didn't call them they would figure it out that they were supposed to use the SwiftPay service for the automatic billing. They had the phone completely booted off the system (the phone wouldn't log in at all) by a few weeks ago. So, I gave in and tried logging in online to pay the bill. The website acted like they never had my number setup!
So I called them up on the land line. They charged me for June, July, and August, though I was unable to use the phone the entire time, and August it was booted off the network. I was furious at this and there respose was pretty much too bad too sad. So I told them I didn't want service from them any more and that was that.
Then they gave me a buzz the other day asking me to come back and try their new UNLIMITED text messaging! What a crock! I have actually been happier with out the cell phone these last couple months, and don't plan on getting another provider.
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Hippie Logger Jock
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The whole "last mile to the user's home" issue is very soon guna become less and less of an issue with WiMAX and WiFi.
The city where i live just deployed free wifi internet access to most residents, with its reach to increase overtime.
IP is insanely powerful. Bandwidth is increasing, and compression algorithms are only getting better.
I'm looking forward to a future where all consumer-telco, cable and satellite companies will be replaced by a large multitude of ISPs.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
And which real tech-savy person didn't anticipate this?
Cell phone are the intermediate future, and VoIP (in the real sense, not in the sense that they're still connected at all to the copper wires, but just connected to the real internet) or just plain Data over IP ('cos what else is Voice?) is the future.
Especially with wireless becoming cheaper and cheaper; what's gonna evolve is a free system of comms (wifi mesh, whatever) run by hobbyists, where the only role the telecoms are going to play is maintaining the fibreoptics between continents, large companies and cities which aren't easily connected by wireless (in all it's forms).
What's really surprising is that the telco's didn't see this coming: I have a friend who worked for the largest (formerly only) telco in the netherlands, and hwen I told him about this, his response was..."but....but...that's illegal!?". He really didn't understand the power of public airwaves...and he was in strategic planning too!
The only danger of course is that the telco's will lobby gov'ment to restrict private access to public bands....
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Where I live we have to rub two sticks together to make a fire and then shear a passing sheep, spin the wool, weave it into a blanket and use that to make smoke signals to a passing ship asking them to drop off our message the next time they make port.
And you tell that to kids today and they just don't believe you!
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
The old telecom companies are embracing this technology for several reasons:
The consumer wants to head this direction (anyone remember the age of passenger rail in the US?).
It is truly cheaper to provide this service, it's more efficient and may mean increased profitability.
They do know how to provide telephony and know that their customers will trust their offering.
They have not totally besmirched their name yet.
It has never cost telephone companies anything more to send a telephone call across the country or next door. The higher prices they were allowed (by governments) to charge for "long distance" were allowed to enable them to build their infrastructure. The higher prices we pay for cellular service reflects the need of cell phone companies to build out infrastructure so that they can serve their customers everywhere.
Now, telephone companies are finding that there is not just their infrastructure, but a whole new and cheaper infrastructure out there that was built without their investment. Some was paid for by the governments, some was paid for by private industry or other telephone companies. And they can use it -- free! Imagine the increases in profitability when you can sell a service that costs you little or nothing.
Here in the US, one of the reasons why VOIP from telecom companies is so cheap is because the playing field changed. They set up different companies for VOIP and cellular service and these companies don't have labor unions. So not only is the infrastructure cheaper, but labor is cheaper.
I note that BT immediately jumped on this bandwagon. They are, perhaps, the most hated company in the UK because they have held a monopoly for so long and refuse to bring pricing down to more sane levels in favor of keeping profits up. I kind of wonder at BT because they have generated a great deal of animosity in the public they "serve" in exchange for profits that are not visibly plowed into improved infrastructure.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.