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."

Comments

A land-line...?

[SIGALRM]

"We saw what would happen with Voice over Internet Protocol. Rather than allow it to happen to us, we decided to embrace the technology," a BT spokesman said.

Smart move. The discount carriers are going to ramp-up competition, and this can only be good for us, the good ol' consumer. One of these days, VoIP will come to mobile, and that will be another milestone; we'll see how the big carriers respond to that.

I still keep my land-line operational, though... I'm beginning to wonder why.

Re:A land-line...?

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I still keep my land-line operational, though... I'm beginning to wonder why. Well, it's not really a bad idea considering that your landline is the most reliable. It'll work during bad weather, and it'll work during a power outage, or when your ISP is being neglegent and your connection is down.

Re:A land-line...?

[BoldAC]

I still have a land line... it's just through the cable instead of POTS.

We've been using roadrunner's digital phone service since day 1. $30ish for anywhere, anytime, no LD. Call waiting, etc.

We've had no problems with service until the last week. The cable/VoIP modem start cycling and trying to readjust over and over.

The guy came out and changed the modems. He said that it is very, very common.

So if you start losing VoIP service and your modem starts cycling... be quick to report it so they can change out your device.

I can blast huge torrents over suprnova and talk on the phone at the same time without any problems. I've been very impressed with the bandwidth... In fact, my impression is that my bandwidth greatly improved when they switched me over to VoIP. I imagine they uncap the bandwidth when you get digital phone service so insure both services work well together.

AC

Re:A land-line...?

[gcaseye6677]

Is it just me or do virtually ALL newer cordless phones suck? The best one I've ever had was a 900 MHz phone I bought about 7 years ago for $30. Except for needing a new battery a couple of times, it has never had any problems and still sounds great. I couldn't say the same for any newer models that cost a lot more.

Re:A land-line...?

[ZorinLynx]

Don't be so sure. A lot of telcos have moved to using Remote Terminals (RT's) in neighborhoods. Basically, everyone's voice pairs terminate in the RT, and then there's a few pairs of fiber from the RT to the central office.

The idea is to save money; you have to run MUCH LESS copper, since EACH SUBSCRIBER PAIR doesn't have to go to the CO; it also enables DSL services for individuals who would otherwise be too far from the CO.

The problem: Unlike the CO, RT's don't have a backup generator. They only have batteries. So if there's a long-lasting power failure at the RT, you only get a few hours of battery backup before the RT runs out of juice, and all the local voice pairs coming out of it go dead. Sure, there's still light on the fiber coming from the CO, but what good does that do you?

Now, in a crisis, telcos actually have portable generators on trailers that they can haul out to RT's serving critical facilities, like hospitals. But unless your residence shares an RT with a hospital, don't count on getting more than few hours of continued service after the lights go out.

There's generally thousands of these RT's in areas where they're used; they don't have enough generators for all of them.

-Z

Re:A land-line...?

[jriskin]

900mhz is a pretty good spot for cordless. The higher frequencies tend to bounce around and get absorbed by walls and structures. People forget that bigger numbers aren't always better.

Personally I miss the days of 3-5watt analog cell phones. Range was about 10x what the little 800mW ones we carry around today. The networks are also about 10x more crowded. The reason they went to digital in the first place was just to get more people in the same amount of spectrum...

Re:A land-line...?

[tomreagan]

well, they are right, there is no such thing as a 911-only phone. if you want a phone number, you need to pay for service.

however, any phone in the united states is required to permit 911 dialing at all times under all circumstances. if you truly only want the phone to work to dial 911, disconnect servce and leave the phones plugged in. in an emergency, pick it up and dial 911 - the call must go through or the phone company is in a lot of trouble.

you won't have a number, but you'll have what you want.

Re:A land-line...?

[rs79]

It's not just you. I've lost count of how many we've tried and I swear the less you pay the better they work. Sony seems to be the worst; I did a 9 month gig at Sony and everybody there told me to avoid sony phones like the plague.

$30 Unidens seem to work real well.

Re:A land-line...?

[cmallinson]

Sorry, but if you disconnect a land-line service, you will have no dial tone... just a faint ground hum.

It depends how many lines the phone company has available in the central office. If there are many to spare, they will just do a "soft-disconnect" and leave the line live. Most of the time, somebody hooks it up again anyways, and they only have to do a software change to activate it again. Saves a lot of money.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Good

[Aexia]

I took you 2 minutes 10 seconds to say that?

He kept running into the lameness filter.

Never

[gotpaint32]

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.

Re:Never

[LostCluster]

I don't think wireless can successfully replace copper, but coax and fiber most certainly can. I don't think the landline will go away completely, but there's not much reason to use unshielded twisted pairs that have been installed outdoors decades ago when we now have better technologies available.

Re:Never

[flithm]

I just canceled my local service and signed up for Primus' TalkBroadband Service. It's considerably cheaper than the regular land line, and the quality is pretty close.

I too was initially worried about emergency services and so forth, however all this stuff functions as normal with a regular land line. I can call 911, or 411 or whatever just like anybody else can. In the event of a power-outage you can have your service forward to a cell-phone, voice-mail, or even another regular land phone. So I'm really not that worried about it. In the event that the power goes out and the cell phone is dead, and I accidentally cut off my leg, thus disabling me from crawling to my neighbors house to use their land phone to call 911, I suppose I'll just have to suffer :o).

Seriously though, here's my experience so far:

The Good

Cheap.

Works with regular phones, and it actually works pretty good.

Says #$&@ you to the local @*&!@ telco monopoly.

The Bad

Can't use your regular house phone jacks (although if you need a phone in every room you can get one of those multi-set cordless base phones).

The service isn't perfect. (A couple of times someone has called, and before I could pick it up, the system hung up on them). But let's be realistic, this is pretty new technology.

All in all, I'm happy I decided to try out the VoIP phone. It saves me $10-15 / month, and lets me call way more long distance to boot. And I'm a no frills user. No calling features, no call display, I don't really call long distance. For someone who has a big calling feature pack and calls long distance, I could see a VoIP phone saving them a TON of cash.

Surprise surprise.

[cbiffle]

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.

Monopolies are not all bad

[EmbeddedJanitor]

... so long as they are benevolent. For widespread rollout of utilities, a monopoly works very well if they are not so profit oriented. It takes a lot of money and long-term thinking to roll out copper, especially to out-lying areas etc. A hard-assed quarter-by-quarter driven company would continue to look for the best profit which does not necessarily mean taking the technology to the people.

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.

Re:Monopolies are not all bad

[MBCook]

I remember reading something about the head of Standard Oil (IIRC). One of his business advisors asked why they didn't raise the price of oil in the winter when demand spiked to make more money and he replied that he had to keep it affordable otherwise people would freeze to death.

Monopolies aren't always bad, as you said. The problem with the way we see monopolies is that most of them take advantage of it to shaft the customer (on price, service, or anything else). It's when you mix monopolies with proffit motivations above all else that you get in real trouble. A benevolent monopoly can be good, as you said. Unfortunatly, I doubt we'll ever see benevolent monopolies (or even corporations) ever again. They just seem to get greedier and greedier.

Of course, in most situations, a nice open market if best.

What about DSL?

[chiph]

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.

Two disagreements

[Octagon Most]

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 *don't* have a landline phone anymore.

[soft_guy]

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.)

TimeWarner owns me now.

[methano]

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.

Imagine that

[RabidChicken]

*gasp* businesses adapting to new technology!

Re:I miss ma bell

[IANAAC]

but I remember being able to understand clear phones bills and passable customer service.

Do you remember having to pay $0.40 a minute for a long distance call? I do.

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.

Spot on.

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

"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.