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."

Comments

VOIP sucks.

[tjstork]

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.

Re:VOIP sucks.

[Volante3192]

Does your internet and VOIP work when the power goes out?

Pick up that POTS phone...hey look, still working. (Assuming the exchange hasn't been taken out, but if that's the case there's likely bigger problems than a local outage.)

Re:VOIP sucks.

[__aajfby9338]

who can't get IP?

People in rural areas. I can get an analog telephone line at my home (but I didn't bother; I use my cell phone), but cannot get DSL or ISDN because the telephone switch is too far away. There's no cable TV in the area. There are a couple of WiFi-based ISPs that serve the area, but they're really bad. Satellite is an option for those who don't mind the latency. I'm left with using a cellular modem for my internet connection out here, and even with an outdoor antenna, it's pretty crappy. I'd consider reliable 128k ISDN to be an upgrade. Oh, and if I did bother to have a POTS line out here and tried dial-up, I'd be able to get about 28k on a good day, and less if it's rained recently. My cell phone service out here is kinda spotty, but I still don't bother with a POTS line because I don't use the phone too much and I don't feel like paying yet another phone bill.

Now, if cutting the analog cord meant that the telephone providers would be required by law to build out their digital capabilities to anybody within their previous POTS coverage areas, then that would be great for folks who haven't had any good broadband options so far.

Re:VOIP sucks.

[GIL_Dude]

I think that is one of the reasons AT&T wants the FCC to mandate the change. Just like the way today they are required to provide POTS phone service most places (there are exceptions) and they get funding to do so, they would like to get funding to run DSL or other broadband other places. That way they don't have to pay for the infrastructure (again) and get to reap the advantages of it (again). Those more rural areas like yours? Just like today my POTS bill has items on their to force me (and others) to pay to bring service to folks in rural areas, if we get a mandated end date for POTS my broadband bill will have line items forcing me (and others) to pay to get DSL or equivalent service to rural folks. I don't know if that is a good or bad idea - but public funding for the infrastructure with the companies getting the profit is what this is about.

Re:VOIP sucks.

[nine-times]

So yes, the answer is that real, usable IP is out of reach for many of us.

And this is why VoIP and TVoIP aren't going to make POTS and cable systems obsolete in the near future.

It's a real shame that the US doesn't believe in investing in infrastructure. We'll let our bridges collapse, our streets be filled with potholes, our electrical grid take out 1/4 of the country in one blackout, we'll live without a decent railway system, and we'll let our Internet access fall behind the rest of the world. We'll do it all because public infrastructure is "communist".

The truth is, POTS should be obsolete. You have problems with VoIP? Well that's just a sign that VoIP should be improved, made better, fixed. Name a problem with VoIP, and there are people who will find a solution, assuming we're willing to invest in infrastructure. You think POTS grew out of the ground on its own, fully formed and without problems?

Re:VOIP sucks.

[ParanoiaBOTS]

When I moved to where I lived I had POTS go down 3 times due to storms. The last time, a lightning strike near my house (I live in Florida) really jacked it up. Through it all my internet was available. That's what convinced me to make the jump. Since I did switch, I've never had it go down.

If my power drops, or my VOIP isn't working for any reason, the calls to my home phone are forwarded to our cell phones. And we can still call out on those until power comes back.

If our cell phones don't work - then as you have said, there are bigger problems to worry about.

But really, I don't need the VOIP either except as I mentioned, I worry about my kids reliably dialing 911 on a cell phone. Once they are old enough to do that VOIP goes too.

I've found cell phones to be dependable enough for my needs. Google Voice pretty much clears up the few shortcoming there.

There is one problem I don't think you see. The way a cell phone works is that it communicates with a cell tower, that cell tower uses phone lines at some point to route your call. If everything goes to a VOIP based phone system and the power goes out, there is a pretty good chance you will lose your cell phone as well. Currently this doesn't happen because the phone lines carry their own power, so the ones hooked into your cell tower are still up. With a VOIP network, when the power goes out, so does your cell phone.

Re:VOIP sucks.

[tepples]

Personally I think it would be better if we encouraged people to live a bit closer together rather than subsidize people who want a log cabin lifestyle with an urban center connection.

Then who would grow the food that you eat?

Fantasies...

[Pig Hogger]

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

Of course AT&T wants landlines cut....

[Immostlyharmless]

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...

Never sacrifice proven infrastructure

[assemblerex]

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.

Isnt it ironic ? they are the ones withholding

[unity100]

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.

Re:Isnt it ironic ? they are the ones withholding

[mcgrew]

I'm of the opinion that municipalities should own utilities. Here in Springfield the city owns the electric company, and we have the cheapest and most dependable power in the state. The power company actually turns a profit as well, selling excess power to private utilities in surrounding communities. Meanwhile, the poor folks who have Amerin have crappy service, abysmal customer service, and high prices.

The reason is that unlike most businesses, you can't shop around for a utility; it's not like you can go down the street and get a competing electric company. Corporations are beholden to stockholders, and in most businesses that means they have to be beholden to their customers as well. An electric company doesn't have this "problem"; you're stuck with them.

As Lilly Tomlin's character "Ernestine the telephone operator" always said, "We're the phone company. We don't HAVE to."

The electric company here IS beholden to their customers, who vote in local elections. If the electric service gets bad, the mayor loses his job. In effect, the customers are also the stockholders.

To the folks you mention yelling "socialism" I say, how are you with those socialist roads, police, and fire departments? Some things should be free market, but when there is no free market (like electricity or other wired/piped infrastructure, roads etc.), government should own it.

If AT&T wants that...

[Vyse of Arcadia]

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.

Some other roadblocks

[BlueNoteMKVI]

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:

• faxing is unreliable. Yes, businesses should migrate into the 21st century and ditch the fax machine, but MANY businesses (including many of my suppliers) still rely on the fax for their daily operations. We've gotten around that by using a fax-to-email service, but that's sometimes a pain to deal with.
• credit card machines are similar (also using a modem). Again, move into the 21st century and use an IP connection instead, but change is hard. Many businesses are still using their 20 year old credit card machine, and until you phase those out you'll still need a landline.
• security systems apparently don't work well without a landline - I don't know the mechanics of it but I suspect it's similar.
• The biggest issue - VOIP is simply not reliable. POTS lines are required by federal regulations to have a certain uptime, VOIP lines are not. If your VOIP provider goes down in the middle of a business day you have no recourse other than perhaps an SLA agreement with them. We use several and they're generally very reliable, but not to the standard of the good old copper line.

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.

Re:Some other roadblocks

[DragonWriter]

The biggest issue - VOIP is simply not reliable. POTS lines are required by federal regulations to have a certain uptime, VOIP lines are not.

Since the context here is the FCC taking the first step in exploring policy for a switch from PSTN to IP-based networks as the basis for the nation's primary, universally accessible communication network, while one should certainly demand that the FCC require, as part of that policy, that the IP network have the same uptime requirement that applies to the PSTN network it is replacing, I don't think it makes sense -- in that context -- to view the difference in current regulatory requirements for reliability as an intrinsic difference between the technologies.

Re:Majority

[Vyse of Arcadia]

Yes, but analog TV is nowhere near as important as the phone system. It's the difference between not being able to watch a TV show and not being able to call the fire department when your rural house catches fire.

Re:Majority

[iamacat]

Well, they will not be very confused if AT&T just comes and replaces their local exchange with a version that still serves the same wiring in their homes with the same phone numbers, but handles outbound communication through Internet.

Sooner or later

[cdrguru]

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.

People will die

[W.Mandamus]

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.

Re:Please Be Precise!

[perlchild]

If that's how you choose to read AT&T's request... I see:
M. FCC chairman, landlines for consumers make us no money, yet we are legally required to supply them. Can you please make them optional for us? Oh and we'd like not to have to supply fiber-to-the-home at anything less than 10 times the price kthxbai.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The US never made it to ISDN

[Animats]

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.

VoIP gave people choice, and they chose.

[Alrescha]

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)

Re:Great idea!

[Wansu]

You're spot on DrJimbo. Lots of TVs went dark in my home town. Lots of TVs went to the dump too. So much for going green. The unemployed and underemployed can't afford fancy new TVs or the expensive services.

We have POTS and DSL. It has been very reliable. I like the small, independent DSL provider we have. Capable local techs answer the phone on the rare occasion we lose connectivity and it's usually the phone company's problem anyway, not the ISP.

POTS is such a simple mature technology, there's little they can screw up. There's also not much they can overcharge for.

It's no surprise AT&T wants to do away with this so they can gouge me for lousy service and a more restrictive TOS.