Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

AT&T Readying For the End of Analog Landlines

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-was-ready-years-ago dept.

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."

5 of 426 comments (clear)

  1. Of course AT&T wants landlines cut.... by Immostlyharmless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

  2. If AT&T wants that... by Vyse+of+Arcadia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Some other roadblocks by BlueNoteMKVI · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. People will die by W.Mandamus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Please Be Precise! by perlchild · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.