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AT&T Readying For the End of Analog Landlines
nottheusualsuspect writes "AT&T, in response to a Notice of Inquiry released by the FCC to explore how to transition to a purely IP-based communications network, has declared that it's time to cut the cord. AT&T told the FCC that the death of landlines is a matter of when, not if, and asked that a firm deadline be set for pulling the plug. In the article, broadband internet and cellular access are considered to be available to everyone, though many Americans are still without decent internet access."
If I had a reliable VOIP service, I would be happy, but the most reliable thing is POTS. It's simple and it works. I know some people that are just VOIP or just cell phone, but neither is reliable enough to replace my dedicated line - I've tried it, twice, and its just not enough. Plus land lines are dirt cheap.
This is my sig.
The majority of older people I know are still on dial up, and for the most part have no idea what broadband is. There are going to be allot of confused people when this fianally goes down.
Aaah! The delicate irreality of think-tank fueled corporate musings that are mostly thinly veiled attempts at doing away with current regulation and obstacles to pure profitability
Lets stabilize the current cellular service you currently offer before assuming you can handle the onslaught of customers when the 'cord is cut'.
Speaking of handling loads, how are you doing with the barrage of iPhone users?
Before you all jump on me, I am a happy AT&T customer. I am just being bluntly honest.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
Have you seen how much they charge for broadband access via wireless? Seeing as its already normal practice, its a nice way of forcing all those DSL customers to pay by the bite. Not to mention where ever the government mandates an update to necessary infrastructure, a huge hand out isn't far behind.
As far as AT&T is concerned though, I have them, and my calls drop at my house all the time in a city of around a million people. Screw them, course it's not just them, Verizon and Cricket both dropped calls at my house too. A-holes, all of em. Each one of them should change their slogan to "Providing the least amount of service possible to as many people as we can dupe for the most amount of money that the market will bear."
Now THATS a true company mission statement if ever I heard one...
This system has been built up over 100 years, the reality is they want to cut costs and force people to pay more for the same service they get for $29 a month.
Frankly, I don't think they're capable of doing such a thing (technically, yes, they're capable, but I highly doubt they'll want to subsidize Universal Access, particularly with cell service).
decent internet access from many people because it is unprofitable for them to deliver, while still holding on to their granted monopolies in those areas. and then they even go to the extent of saying that they want to cut the landline cords. this basically means a lot of people will not only be without decent internet access, but also decent phone communication. unbelievable bastardiness.
yet, if, any government agency would, god forbid, to step in to eliminate this blatant slighting of citizens, those bastards all start up yelling 'competition' , 'hands off business', 'no government intervention', 'socialism'.
maybe socialism is indeed what is needed. for, apparently, what we have on our hands became an outright feudalism.
Read radical news here
What could possibly go wrong? I said.
My network should fly over head!
Through the air my data will go.
To where, to who, I wouldn't know?
Thanks to WEP my data is Encrypted.
At least until a hack has been scripted.
(.....)
Any proposed replacement must satisfy the following conditions showing it is a true improvement
a) be cheaper now and for the long term for customers
b) be more reliable
c) provide better 911 and other emergency services information
From the above
a) there will not be an initial upfront customer cost over and above current costs.
If it is to be cheaper overall the provider is to eat the up front cost and just delay reducing costs to the customer.
b) things like a touch tone charge are disallowed
c) it must not depend on power available at the customers site
d) digital features like allowing customers to add a digital description containing things like number of house occupants, ages, medial conditions to be sent along with a 911 call should be considered.
I was always under the impression that landlines were necessary. When there's a power outage you can't use cellular or cordless. I hate to sound like an idiot, but it seems like I'm missing some integral part of the story here. How would this work?
Make sure I can still call a frigging ambulance when the electricity is out to my house and their local DSL box. This should include powering and charging cordless phone base and receiver typically used with VOIP for a few days.
And that I can just dial and hang up and have someone local check out my house/apartment, not just give highway patrol my phone number or at most the broad area that GPS suggested.
I still don't like the concept that my 911 or other calls can be disabled by a new worm attacking the unpatched windows idiots, but I am not sure what AT&T can do about that, given that they don't control most of Internet's core infrastructure.
There still is nothing as reliable as a plain regular analog telephone line, as engineered by the fine people who used to work at AT&T.
Even though I love my blackberry, I'm going to keep my POTS line for a very long time. My POTS line has worked flawlessly from the day it was installed for over 10 years.
I love this line from the article: "It makes no sense to require service providers to operate and maintain two distinct networks when technology and consumer preferences have made one of them increasingly obsolete."
Lies. The analog portion of the phone system is only in the last mile. The backend of the phone system has been digital for a very long time, and it is ALREADY common to see IP-based backhaul with QOS.
[T]hough many Americans are still without decent internet access
If they're AT&T customers that's probably especially true.
I have no problem with removing analog phone lines from a requirement as long as they're required to still provide phone service to rural areas via VOIP boxes or cell to landline convertors or something similar. I think they'll find that the whole thing will wind up being more expensive than just keep analog pairs around (especially if the phone still needs to work in a power outage).
Fax machines and Stand Alone Credit Card terminals require them too. You can sometimes jury rig it to work, but it's a crap shoot....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
All of the valid points/problems in the previous comments aside, at least this would finally put an end to fax machines, eh?
...if AT&T hadn't dropped from 4 bars to 2 in my area.
Honestly, their cell network is nowhere near ready for a switch. Large areas aren't even covered by EDGE. And the way their network is collapsing under the weight of a handful of people reading nytimes.com from their iPhones, I really don't want to see what it looks like with even more users.
If AT&T wants the FCC to set a date to cut landlines, the FCC should force AT&T (and other corporations) to get the country's infrastructure up to snuff first. We can talk about dates after that.
I've used VOIP for years at both my business and my house - but we still have a landline. Just a few other roadblocks we ran into that weren't mentioned:
I love the flexibility I get with VOIP, I can work from anywhere with a decent internet connection and have all kinds of routing options through my Asterisk server, but we still have our incoming calls defaulting to a POTS line that runs into the Asterisk box. VOIP is constantly gaining ground but it's not there yet.
Or (as I believe would be the case), the phone is powered from house wiring meaning, if your power goes out, you've lost your phone service. If the central office provides the power for the local loop (as is currently done), they have batteries fail over to when their power goes out. Several years ago, my power went out for 3 days. Using an old dial phone which didn't require external power, I still had phone service.
This plan is like saying municipal water is outdated and unnecessary because "everyone" can buy bottled water.
I just cut my landline, it was garbage. The phone company wasn't about to bring DSL or Fios to my area, and no one that I wanted to hear from was likely to actually call it. I think that if all of my neighbors do similar, we may actually get decent Internet access out there. The cable company just started offering TV out there, and alas no broadband. They're late to market, and the main reason that I'd purchase their service is not offered.
there's copper in them there lines. our slave script has become so devalued that the copper is worth a huge amount of script. as members of the slave class are starting to rip wires out of the ground to sell for food it becomes increasingly important to companies to get to the metal first either to liquidate it or to better secure it.
...when you start supporting a cheap and reliable alternative.
I'm not going to hold my breath.
I'll keep my land line at my house active as long as possible.
I have three small kids and I need something absolutely reliable in case of an emergency.
While I do absolutely love modern mobile tech (Droid!), I prefer using a land line while at home. I simply don't enjoy having long conversations on a mobile phone. The newest phone at my house is a Nortel Meridian M9616CW which was (for me) the ultimate geek phone in the mid 90s. They seem to fetch a good price:
http://www.telephonegenie.com/customer/product.php?productid=16149
The rest are all Western Electric, Automatic Electric and ITT phones from the early 40s - 70s that I've collected and repaired. They all work perfectly (even rotary dialing) on the Cox Digital phone service.
As the article mentioned, POTS is preferable in disaster areas. I live in an area of New Orleans that didn't flood in Katrina. The only way I was able to contact people in my neighborhood who stayed for the storm was on their land lines.
In our northside Chicago neighborhood, the ATT-maintained land lines get all noisy and cross-talky whenever it rains.
We can hear other conversations on the line.
We call the 611 number, and they fiddle with it, it gets better. The next time it rains, the lines get noisy.
I'm completely unsurprised that ATT doesn't want to have land lines anymore. They're too cheap to be bothered with upkeep.
The problem is one of market share and costs. At some point, the costs of maintaining POTS will exceed the revenue produced by it. When that happens, or maybe a little before, POTS is dead. It really doesn't matter if not everyone has switched over or not, it will just be terminated.
That is the reason they want an announced-by-the-government date, as it would eliminate the carrier from being the bad guy.
The problem is today end-user vVOIP has no tariffs that require reliability. If Vonage service goes out, so what? Because of the number of hands it has to go through, it is unlikely we are going to see much mandated reliability for VOIP service anytime soon. This means that your "landline" phone is not going to have anywhere near the reliability that POTS service has today, and there will be no regulation that says it has to be.
All in all, this sounds like an interesting, but utterly useless idea. But unless something is done about pseudo-carriers like Vonage and Magic Jack POTS service is doomed.
start a conversation in the subject only to finish it in the body of the comment.
Knock it off.
I just moved to an area where the choice is between AT&T and cable (Cox).
Once again, AT&T proved itself to be at an uncharted level of evil leaving all others, including cable monopolies, far behind.
Do yourself a favor and untether yourself from the evil grid - you'd save a bundle just for the reduced spending on blood pressure pills.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Has anyone considered the real cost of maintaining the wire line infrastructure? Perhaps the cost savings of not having to maintain such an infrastructure will help fund the rapid expansion of wireless IP based services.
That’s my 2 cents.
Did anyone think for a second this wasn't a thinly veiled: "hey, why don't you spend your stimulus budget on IP infrastructure?"
But that's how it works in North America: publicly funded, privately managed. Federal money will (hopefully) create a public, reliable, IP network that brings one connection to the home we use to choose our content (phone, tv, media) providers. Maybe now we'll get our internet up to the level of a developed country like, say, South Korea... or a better part of Europe.
As a Slashdot user I'd jump on this right away, but not blindly. Now is the perfect time to educate people about options and freedom that come with common carrier laws, and make sure those come attached to any build-out funds.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
Are you gonna pay for the upkeep on a system that is no longer economically viable? Sure POTS was built up over 100 years, but most of that buildup was when it was new technology (or the only technology) and there were lots of willing customers. That age is LONG gone. Come on, 25% of US households have no landline at all. And that number is growing every year. So as the critical mass of people using it goes away, who is gonna be left to foot that bill? When all your neighbors ditch landlines, are you gonna pay for the phone lines for your whole street that reach your house?
POTS will die. It isn't an if... it's a when. So, we mandate the newer tech (VOIP and cell) and bring them up to the same level of service as POTS (which will be painful for some companies) and switch the universal service fund so that those of us with IP will have to kick in a buck every month to pay to wire IP to all the folks who live in places without IP... the same way we did with the fund and POTS.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
In Katrina the power went out, the cell phone towers went down, the police multiplexing radio stopped working. The only communication people had when the water started coming into their homes were their analog phone lines. When everything else stopped working those remained operational. I still remember people calling in to a local radio station (from their landlines) to say that they were trapped in their attic and request help. Getting rid of analog phones is the worst idea I've ever heard and shows that that the people suggesting it have never seen the information black hole that results from a major disaster.
The majority of dialup credit card machines on the market do not work well with VOIP lines. If AT&T forces this change, a few hundred thousand small businesses will be forced into buying new machines.
Barring the sudden availability of much better internet access, this is bad news for my parents. They live about 15 miles from the nearest town, which is itself nothing to really speak of. Wireless is available, but they are on the very edge of the service area, so it is unreliable. They've been using a satellite-based service for a year or two, but the latency is terrible. A ping to google takes around 1.5 s (yes, seconds). I haven't tried to call anyone on skype from their house, but I imagine it would be unusable. Their cell phone service is somewhat spotty, as well.
As there is no way that phone companies would want to (or be allowed to) abandon millions of miles of copper wire and the tasty franchises and monopolies that went along with their installation, there will be no switch to a wireless-only phone network. Phone companies aren't suggesting any such thing, don't have and don't want to build the required wireless bandwidth, and have invested a ton of money in digital switches and fiber connections between their facilities.
I'd guess that the switch-to-subscriber last-mile connection is probably about the only analog left in most phone systems. However, changing that last mile from analog to digital would be the way to go - and would be hugely less expensive than replacing wire with fiber.
Each current subscriber would receive either a new digital handset or an A-to-D converter if they wanted to keep their current handset. Note that this seems to have worked out OK for the TV switchover.
The new system would continue to provide DC current to power the customer handsets or converters so should continue to work even in case of AC power outs. The new digital handset/converter would provide some sort of packet-based transmission to the (probably already digital) switch where it would enter (certainly already digital) long distance system.
Why bother to do this? New markets for new products from the phone company; new features on your newly-digital POTS handset. Why fire up a PC to get VOIP service - or non-voice communication? How about email directly to grandma's phone? A real videophone? Digital service to every home with universal Internet access? Multiple subscribers in remote areas on a single piece of wire without party lines? Multiple concurrent phone calls from/to your home phone with only one phone number?
A pile of new products and services to sell. Big profits. If I owned a phone company, I'd want to do it. Especially if I could get the A-to-D converters subsidized by the government.
Yeah but I can get POTS for $12/month, and I don't need to make long distance calls. I don't need/want caller ID. I've got an answering machine, I don't need a service for that either.
The FCC Public Notice (TFA refers to a Notice of Inquiry, but links to a Public Notice soliciting comments as to whether the FCC should issue of a Notice of Inquiry) isn't about cutting "landlines", its about replacing PSTN with IP as the implementation technology for telephone service.
But the concern you raise is valid even in that context; issues like usefulness in emergencies (both in terms of 911 service and resilience to power failures and other sources of outages) are things that would no doubt be significant areas if the FCC's investigation of such a transition moves forward -- which I fully expect it to.
The context of the FCC Public Notice is about the transition in the context of the Congressional mandate for the FCC to provide guidance on acheiving universal broadband access and utilization, and transitioning the phone system to IP so that the IP network is the single universal communication network that has to be maintained would make sense as a means of doing that.
Of course, that does raise the question of the kind of common carrier provisions that have applied to the providers of access to the PSTN network because it is the nation's principal universal communication system and frequently and naturally (because of the infrastructure requirements) the subject of regional monopolies, but not (though they are often the same providers) to the providers of IP access.
Sadly, my family lives well below the poverty line and we've been struggling to get by since before I was born.
The only internet we can afford is dial-up and that's only possible through a landline phone.
Yes, I know it's slow, but it's what we have and we have to make do.
There is no way my family would be able to continue using the internet at all, if regular landline phone access ceases, and we can't afford a cell phone.
It's ridiculous that because the number of people who are stuck with things like dial-up is the minority in this nation, that we're being bit-by-bit squeezed out of society as a whole.
I don't want to pay more and get more, even if it's better value for the dollar. I want to pay less and get what I think I need. I want to make that decision. I don't want an unholy alliance in which The Government forces me to do what best for The Corporations.
The digital TV transition was different, because when it came down to it, those of us who prefer free broadcast TV still have that choice. (Most of us). We paid a one-time charge for a converter box, less than $20 with the coupon, ZERO DOLLARS PER MONTH, and life goes on. Yes, the transition was bungled, and the FCC lied when they said people who were getting adequate analog reception would get adequate digital reception, but by and large our freedom of choice was more or less preserved.
The important point is not that transition cost was small, the important point is that it was ONE TIME. The difference between what we have now--copper-wired POTS, plus DSL, plus broadcast TV, and the cheapest digital package from the three providers in my area (municipal electric company, Verizon FIOS, Comcast) is at least $30 a month. Not $30: that's $30 + $30 + $30 + $30 + $30 + $30 + $30 + $30 + $30 + $30 + ... (Well, due to life expectancy, at least there's effectively a "senior discount!")
And the last time there was a big power outage where I worked, the spiffy new VOIP phone on my desk went out INSTANTLY. (No, in theory it shouldn't have, in theory there was no good reason, I'm just saying what happened). After about 90 minutes, nobody could get signal on their cell phone. (Again, there's "no reason why that should have happened," but it did). The older set of desk phones, which hadn't been disconnected yet, lasted a couple of hours. But the three plain old telephones that were still around, because it was easier to use with the fax machines than with any of the newer systems, were working fine five hours later. And based on admittedly decades-old experience, probably would have been working days later.
They will tell us that they can make the digital infrastructure just as reliable, and during the next big Katrina-like disaster the phones will all go dead and then they will tell us "but that SHOULDN'T have happened."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Home security systems rely on a land line. If we didn't have the security system we'd get rid of the home phone. It would cost several hundred to get a cellular box for the security system which just isn't worth it. Instead we have a MagicJack for long distance calling and basic land line service. For cellular service we just use TracFone. It's very rare that a phone call must be made and no regular phone is available. An internet connection is a must anyway so I don't consider that into the cost of a MagicJack.
If VOIP were really that great the market forces would just naturally phase out landlines. It's actually being phased out by cell phones. In another generation or two there will be no question whether or not to cut the wire and use the resources for something else.
Work Safe Porn
During the extensive hurricane seasons of 04/05 my POTS and DSL and Cable all went dead after 3 days. The only thing that worked was my cell phone. I think that the transition to pure wireless will be ugly no matter what. The tipping point will probably occur when the majority feel that they don't need wired lines and that they are unfairly subsidizing those that do want/need wired lines.
It's not really a case of "cutting the cord" or doing away with landlines. All that's happening is POTS is replaced by VoIP and the copper is being upgraded to fibre.
Yes, POTS is pretty much redundant and I can't even remember the last time I used the house phone, or a house phone number called my mobile. I resent paying BT nearly as much as I pay my ISP, simply for powering the line that I only use for broadband. In terms of cost, other than international calls it's probably a lot cheaper to just increase your cell plan than to pay for a landline (except for businesses). This is all rather beside the point though, land lines are used for internet now, POTS is just in the way.
Yes there is the possibility of using mobile internet and doing away with the landline, but it's not really practical for a lot of people. Plans (in UK anyway) are expensive (if you work out the cross-subsidy), nothing like "unlimited", speeds are highly variable, unreliable and high latency unsuitable for gaming. Xbox? Mass-scale HD TV on demand?
I can't really see AT&Ts reasoning. The fact is copper line wire pretty much runs everywhere, and by adding some DSL line extenders, much of this could be reused for providing DSL service everywhere for relatively little cost, compared to having to build new networks. So POTS infrastructure can be used to help bring broadband to rural areas relatively cheaply reusing much of the existing infrastructure. Wireless tends to be expensive and slow. due to the limited bandwidth, simply due to the fact everyone in an area is sharing that bandwidth. DSL could probably offer cheaper and faster service more reliably.
I'd LOVE to switch over to AT&T's U-verse service which optionally provides VOIP phone service, but it's not available in our subdivision. It's available a few miles down the road at my relative's house, but not near ours. We've been regularly asking them to install it, but they don't seem to want our money.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Goodbye to analog land lines, OK. Hello, digital fiber-optic landlines! Because they can reliably carry lots more information than wireless.
There's really nothing governmental about the actual disbursement of money.
Municiple utilities such as water and wastewater depend on analog lines (leased lines) to relay informaion such as levels, and to do simple switching of things on and off remotely. This obviously can be done over internet or cell connections, but there are hundreds of thousands of these connections across the country that would need to be replaced. If we were given a deadline of 5 years, it couldn't be done. And it will be a costly switch in hardware. Though lately the cell and internet solutions are cheaper monthly bills.
The end of land lines isn't even close to being near. How many politicians are going to let the only communication that many rural resident have be cut? The rural residents that happen to be quite active voters and a major portion of the voters in many states for at least one of the parties.
In addition, it would only take one news story about seniors or a mother with a baby having their only way to contact emergency services being cut to have the politicians running in fear.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've been a /. reader for years...never posted. But this topic is one that finally got me to at least post as an AC.
My parents live ON a major highway in N. Mississippi -- it's four-lane split highway that has interstate-level traffic volume. It's the main route from the interstate to a major state university (about 25 miles). I.E., they don't live within a designated city limits (not too far beyond though) but they also don't live out in the sticks either.
Both of my folks have called AT&T repeatedly to ask about DSL. They've watched their yard be dug up by AT&T running new lines and have asked the guys putting down lines about it (they get shrugs). They've asked about the AT&T "box" not far down the highway from their driveway and caught up with guys working at the box (no answers). They've all but begged AT&T for broadband going on at least 3 years now (probably more actually), to no avail. I've searched for broadband solutions for them myself, but found that satellite and mobile broadband have ridiculous usage limits for too high a price. Also, sat broadband locks folks into a contract and has some of the worst customer complaints I've seen for any product. I've even researched ISDN (installation is too expensive) and multi-link dial-up (couldn't find a provider). Short of them winning the lotto and hiring someone to lay the lines themselves, I don't know what they can do to get something better than crappy early 90's level dial-up. Recently I suggested that they call the cable company and see if they've gone beyond their usual "eff you, we don't go out that far" business model, but after 20 years of the "eff you" I doubt that anything's changed.
As I stressed, they live ON a major highway in AT&T's territory. There are many people living in the surrounding community OFF the highway. If my parents have had such trouble getting affordable broadband service, what chance do those folks have? There are thousands of people in old Bellsouth territory living in rural areas that AT&T (or any other company) haven't even come close to providing any broadband options.
AT&T going all IP? What, 20 years from now? Unless they intend to give up thousands upon thousands of customers or flip on some magical wireless broadband network no one knows they've installed, it's not gonna happen nationwide even close to soon. Oh, I'm sure what will happen is they'll switch over where they can and continue to leave rural customers further and further behind. Then they'll wait for the gov't to issue some "do it now or else" order and special tax to finish the job.
Though considering how many failures I've had with my VOIP service in the middle of a major city, it might be a good thing if they can't switch off the old analog lines for rural folks. That's all many of those people have to call for emergency services.
The scaremongering summary doesn't seem to convey the correct meaning.
I think the implication is actually a move to something like the new style BT network being implemented in the UK. Called the 21st Century Network (21CN). See http://www.btplc.com/21cn/
In parts of Europe, voice phone service has been digital for a decade or more, using ISDN. ISDN voice is 64Kb/s uncompressed, so you get digital audio for the last mile in the same format as the rest of the phone network, and with no packetization lag. ISDN was supposed to take voice digital. Unfortunately, US phone companies took it as an opportunity to switch from flat-rate local call pricing to per-minute pricing, so it never went anywhere.
The US did ISDN power wrong - Europe provides power over ISDN, but the US does not. So ISDN home equipment remains powered up as long as the central office has power. (There's a cute trick with ISDN power - normally, it's one DC polarity, and you can draw a fair amount of power, enough to run answering machines, wireless base stations, and ISDN phone displays. In emergencies, the central office reverses the DC polarity and lowers the current limit. You can still make calls, but the accessories power down.) Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark are about 1/3 voice ISDN.
Here are some modern ISDN phones. They have nice features, like a running display of call cost and SMS capability. ISDN and DSL can be run on the same wire pair, so using ISDN for voice and DSL for data works.
you wigguh
and when the aliens disable our wireless communications, then what?
you. I'll post how I
As expected, there are numerous responses with concerns about 911 availability. The biggest issue is that 911 depends on the reliability of the network it is used on. So since it's so important, why are we piggy backing it on other services. Maybe the FCC should set aside part of the spectrum for emergency frequencies and we can all have emergency radios in our house. Even if it's just an emergency beacon device of some sort, it might be enough.
No, seriously, what's so bad about it? Sometimes the first few words of what you're going to say are the topic of your post.
We only live about 20 outside Tacoma WA, but we have no cable service (TV or Internet), no DSL, poor to none cell service, no wireless internet options....Its satellite or dial up, neither really work for viop services. When I tried dial up we cant even get 56k, it topped out at 26k. From calls to comcast & quest it sounds like our area is not even on the coming soon list.
even the government know how important the old analog phone lines can be. most people still have there landlines even if they have voip or a cell. i have a windstream landline and dsl and a old phone from the 70s that runs off the phone line power i use when i lose power and it always works. my dsl probably would still work if i had a ups system in place. but i do beleve some voip systems do work if the local power fails like cable phones. or if you had a ups on your dsl modem.
If you are at the top of one hill and the school is at the top of another hill, don't you have to walk uphill both ways for at least part of the time?
Did AT&T ever provide a web page that allows you to monitor usage so that you could cut back if it looks like you are about to go over the limit?
If they haven't, then people need to start getting their local politicians to demand it.
Just look at how well the forced conversion to digital TV worked out. They said the reason for the forced conversion was to help bring better OTA TV coverage to rural areas. In my very rural area we had 5 network TV stations: ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and PBS before the forced conversion. Now we have three, only one of which actually switched to digital. The crippled $20 off boxes don't pass through analog signals without degradation so I have to replug the antenna in order to switch channels.
Ah yes, another stellar example of the best government money can buy. Did it not suffice that the telecoms have kept the US in the technological telecommunications toilet compared to the rest of the developed world? Now they've destroyed OTA TV and are planing to destroy POTS and DSL. Yet whenever we try to fight the corporate destruction of our country, our efforts get thwarted by the simple ploy of crying "socialism!".
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Bell Canada has been completely VOIP since 2006, in fact, they partially funded one of the big VOIP providers to develop it, so in case of failure, they wouldn't have egg on their face if they developed the process 1st and it failed.
ATT whines about people leaving for alternative services as if it were inevitable. I don't think it was.
VoIP gave people alternatives to being gouged $25 or $30 a month for just *dialtone*, and people chose. I have a T-Mobile prepaid cell phone and I pay less than that *per year* for the 'dialtone' component.
I'd pay $100/year for a wired circuit and dialtone, but that kind of money just isn't enough for the likes of AT&T.
A.
(who has been off the PSTN for a long, long time)
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
Look at how we settle for crappy call quality, spotty reception, terrible battery life and outrageously expensive plans all to own a mobile phone. And yet we run like lemmings to AT&T or Verizon as soon as the "next generation" phone shows up with yet another "cool" feature that doesn't address one real issue. We have trained these companies to treat us like crap while maintaining a generally poor level of service by continuing to pay them money.
In essence, we have taught them that what consumers really want from technology suppliers is something to complain about, and we are willing to pay big bucks to get it.
...as long as it is a fair trade, rural versus heavy urban. I'll take no broadband while living in the log cabin because it doesn't exist out in the sticks as long as the big cities, those folks living in a more "sensible" heavily packed high rise apartment means they get no food, because it doesn't exist there and has to be trucked in, which we will cut out then.
Fair enough? You keep your 50 meg down high speed connection, we keep the food, seems totally fair to me, no reason to push one product or the other one way or the other when it doesn't exist there, just let folks live with what they have locally and be done with it. No need for commie subsidized and shared roads, nor commie subsidized and shared wires on poles then, everyone is happy, no urbanite pays for anything from or for the rural areas, no rural folks pay for anything from or for the urban areas. Even steven, complete split there. You got yours, we got ours, no one pays for the other guy's life in any manner.
err..good luck man, hope you like those tasty electrons....
... might well be worth hacking....
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3555.en.html
As someone who worked with AT&T's marketeers during that time of ISDN development, the internal name for ISDN was "It Still Does Nothing", and I'm afraid that, 20 yrs later, that name continues to hold true.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If AT&T is going to all the trouble to get this approved, can we please get something better than an analog line with DTMF?
How about a camera phone? How about something smart enough to not ring if the person calling isn't someone I want to talk to?
The FCC's mission statement is missing. They no longer serve the fucking public interest!
In some instances bottled water comes from municipal water, with additional filtering.
Tasty electrons!
It they drop POTS, I'm not going to be choosing VIOP as the alternative. I'm going to a cell phone. They've been losing to cell phones a lot lately, with the portability and cheaper prices, and this will just force more people over. They won't be getting a 100% conversion rate, so I expect their customer base to shrink greatly.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
They absolutely require analog telephony and neither digital phone systems nor VOIP will accommodate them. And there are MILLIONS of them deployed and running right now on analog dial. Verifone and Hypercom (the two main manufacturers) are trying their best to sell IP enabled devices but they still have machines made nearly 20 years ago (like the best terminal ever made, the Verifone Tranz330) still chugging away.
Don't assume your experience is typical. Some people live in cell dead spots (I did 6 years ago, which is the last time I had a land line), but most don't. Some people can't get decent VOIP (had a colleague who would Skype into meetings from Shanghai, driving us all crazy with weird noises) but most can.
VOIP was a pretty flaky technology for a while, mainly because most networks didn't have the capacity for it. That's changed, and a lot of big enterprises rely on it. I've worked at major companies where there are no POTS jacks at all -- all the phones are plugged into ethernet.
All we ever wanted to do was play with it. Give the PSTN over to a nonprofit group headed by, say, the editors of 2600 mag. We might even add some features.
At least you are consistent! HAHAHAH1
I can't believe you really *believe* that. heheheheh
Here's a hint, all those rural folks WERE ALREADY OUT THERE far from the cities before there were even telephones. Government mandated universal service had nothing to do with people moving rural. Of course you can keep believing that was the reason.
As to subsidies, hell ya, let's end all of them! All for it! I agree! Total complete nothing eliminated free market! Let's have all private toll roads, and folks in the cities can also now go shopping around and pay full open market price for such things as pipeline delivered water, which is taken from the rural areas now, with no recompense to the actual owners, and given at chump change nearly fully subsidized prices to the urban areas. Yee hah let's do it! Let's have totally unregulated electricity markets, oooh, how about unregulated natural gas markets, and all these private corporations have to negotiate *individual* right of way transit fee contracts with all the rural landowners for those water pipelines, roads to carry coal or uranium, roads to carry food, natural gas pipelines, all of it. Backbones? Why yes, we'll negotiate with you to run your "backbones" across our properties for your broadband internet, same as we do for the water sellers and the natural gas sellers.
So, we are agreed, we do this and then see what shit REALLY costs, and who gets more "subsidies" and government help in order to enjoy their "lifestyle".
Nifty experiment, I can't wait, please urban folks, lobby as hard as you can, demand, march in demonstrations, flood the switchboards, fax, do flash mobs, all of the above, use your overwhelming Blue state and Blue urban area vote, end *all* subsidies, let's go all private, free market rules, for every-single-thing.
Demand to pay free market full competition price, demand to end all the "commons", because there is no "common good" now with all them pesky demanding hicks, why all them dad blamed rural folks is just sucking down all our monies! Wah! We support them, we subsidize all their life, it ain't fair, we shouldn't have to pay anything for them! How dare they want to live out there with all our lektricity we gives them and so on!
Oh man that would be sweet! Let's try it for say..a full year, see how that goes.
I'm serious, let's do it, like to see it happen once and for all so we can get this urban versus rural stuff sorted out better, to see what is really worth what, to see what the real free market, no government subsidy or coerced takings price is of things.
Everything, hold nothing back, all free market, you in the cities pay what the market will bear, no subsidy, no government intervention, no Public Utility Commissions, no municipal water, all of it, and we do exactly the same. End all subsidies and government takings. No more "eminent domain" and all aspects of private property go back to said owners of private property. You want access and rural stuff, you pay what is demanded from the private property owners, and that's it, no government intervention to keep your prices lower or give you unfettered access at greatly reduced rates. Just the free market. Wall Street free market rules, your glorious biggest city, the crown jewel or urban existence, the very bluest of the blue, the hippest and most modern, the home of all that it urban-holy, the epicenter of the anti-rural.
Oh, by the way...just in case you guys really do this..most likely we rural folks aren't going to be taking your printed up pieces of nonsense paper "money", we will want something really *worth* something. Time to start thinking about that.
So not sure exactly how you plan on paying for our stuff, if we even decide to sell it that is, but we'll just sit on it under free market urban rules until you come up with something better than your phony baloney "urban money" you create out of nothing. We want real stuff of worth from you for our real stuff, and little sheets of paper..sorry, but no...we got our own kindling, thanks anyway.
I work for SprintPCS, so posting anon. 911 routing is based on the tower you are using (at least with CDMA, I know little/nothing of GSM). This is a problem for people that live near the edge of their county & the tower is in the next tower over, I have had to advise customers that needed 911 to immediately tell the operator that they were in x county, not y county that answered so they could get appropriate assistance.
Landlines are hugely expensive compared to any wireless solution -- it's just that most of them have been paid for decades ago.
Civil war, here we come!
After working at a VOIP provider (yes, in a technical capacity), I say: "you can shove VOIP up your a$$". Gimme POTs, it is FAR more durable.
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Let's dance!
I have both POTs and VOIP. I use POTs because my telco is the only Internet game in town and in order to have 911 service. I use VOIP for cheap calls with no taxes for my business line. If it weren't for the fact that I have to have POTS in order to have Internet, I would have gone completely VOIP a long time ago. VOIP can be as reliable as your Internet service if you provide battery backup for your FXO (The thing you plug you analog phone into) and your DSL or CABLE modem (and router if you have it). You also have to provide battery backup for your computer if it serves as your phone system switch. With VOIP, you can also connect to many different phone networks (other that POTS). In addition, you can set up a very secure network where you can communicate with other offices in an organization without much fear of snooping or wiretapping. VOIP is definitely the way to go.
Many areas do NOT have proper 911 service available for VOIP providers. This is not the VOIP provider's fault, however, as 911 centers are accessed through POTS systems. Certain telcos *cough* AT&T *cough* will not allow VOIP providers access to the 911 centers connected through them. Yes, they claimed 'the terrists might get the 911 service numbers' as their excuse.
Well that's news to me, since I have no broadband. Sprint->Embarq->CenturySomethingOrOther has told our county that they've rolled out all the service they intend to, pretty much. My exchange isn't even over 50% for DSL availability. Time Warner has told the county the same thing. They've got all the easy customers they want and are telling anyone that asks from the state that they have no intention of rolling out new service anywhere, for any reason. Not even if the state pays them with subsidies and grants. Both companies have refused to even submit proposals for the broadband stimulus money -- they don't want it. They've got what they want and screw the entire communities being left behind.
So AT&T, fuck you. There are a ton of people in this country that have nothing and will get nothing for the foreseeable future.
As to landlines, fuck you again. I get one bar at home and have to wander around the yard to send a text. My battery that lasts 14 days in any normal place lasts about a day out here, it has to run so hot. I've got 40,000 people with me, so it's not like there are five guys living in a barn out here.
I swear these telco companies are some of the most evil our country has.
http://about.me/paultenny
Wow, talk about a sleazy way to make more money. AT&T stops offering traditional landline service. To fill the gap, you need to get either a cell phone or VOIP. Well, Cell Phone service costs WAY MORE than landline service. And to get VOIP, you need high speed Internet. For poeple like you and me, it probably wouldn't make a difference. But think of the elderly, that probably have old traditional landline service and pay for long distance by the minute. Their montly phone bill would go up from $19.99 a month to at least double that, possibly more. Andy
The telcos* consider it a loss because they are fixated on next quarter's profits. they have never suffered a loss, going all the way back to when they got mandated to provide a step up from having to go to the local telegraph office. Never. They have bitched about it, but never a loss. Hundreds of billions in profits is more like it. Major global big league bucks. They still bitch though.
Investing in your base infrastructure yields profit a little farther down the road, and also helps the "general" economy as well, increasing the disposable income all your potential customers might be wanting to spend on your products.
Short range low brow thinking verus long range with a bit more skull sweat applied, choose *one*.
Look what our highway system did for commerce and the economy in general terms, everyone came out a winner. It was the main economic driver of the twentieth century in the US once all is said and done. Being able to move people and goods from any point A to any point B easily and cheaply *worked*. Granted, it brought more problems, that we are addressing now, but just like the clipper ships then the railroads increased trade, so did the good quality and widespread highway and automobile/truck system. It unlocked our geographical and human potential better than anything else.
We need a much better digital highway system. They don't want to do it, because it won't show immediate short term megaprofits. Wicked short sighted. Their idea of innovation is locking phones down and selling you *ringtones*.
These are not economic mastermind moves. This is short bus, wearing a helmet all the time action.
For example, they and the cable companies nailed the low hanging fruit, but refused to expand coverage past that point of the heaviest and densest population areas. As such, totally new competition came in and they missed all of that market for twenty years now, from wireless satellite TV service, and now somewhat more satellite internet. You look around, that's 50-100$ a month, that you can see most anyplace in the nation represented by dishes on millions of suburban and rural roofs, going to companies that *ain't them* because they refused to run some dang wires on poles that are already there, back when it was much cheaper to do so!
They are trying to make up for it now with cellphone coverage, but are still shooting themselves in the foot with restricted phones, etc, and not building their core business-supply a big fat pipe, and keep making it better-and bitching about stupid things like google taking money from them. Which is really a wtf? stance when you realize both google and the regular end users of google pay their bandwith as it is.
Lastly..they already DID get paid, 200 BILLION dollars in fees taken from everyone on their phone bill in the 90s, plus other goodies to roll out true high speed infrastructure all over, and failed to do so. Criminally in my view, as in RICO, fraud, theft by conversion, etc. As in some telco CEx whatevers should be doing hard time over this right now. This link has been provided many times over the years now on slashdot, but here it is again, for folks like you who continually spout the telco party line falsehood:
http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm
This has *never* been debunked. It HAS been ignored by the main stream controlled propaganda press, and also by "government".
As for selling ag at a loss, we did for over a full year during the big fuel and feed price run ups of '08, the vast bulk of which was perpetrated and profited by the big gambling investment casinos and speculator market, the non productive legalized urban NYC/DC axis of maximum profits skimming and theft crew, the ones who have their own employees running the Fed and the Treasury and who bribe off all the pols all the time. Drinking buddies with the telco execs no doubt..
If there was ever a big rural strike, to get straight wh