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.

[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.

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.

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.