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.

[stoolpigeon]

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.

Re:VOIP sucks.

[bill_beeman]

Actually, a very large number of us. Since the entity now called AT&T acquired Pacific Bell, extension of broadband to rural areas has ground to a halt, their public relations comments notwithstanding.

There's no cell service at my location, no terrestrial IP provider, leaving me with satellite. Given the high latency and bandwidth caps it's not a real substitute. I'd cheerfully abandon POTS, but we're screwed if we do. VOIP over satellite doesn't work. Comcast came through the neighborhood a couple of years ago, putting brackets on the line poles, but abandoned the project as soon as AT&T quit talking about expanding DSL.

I'm hardly in the back of beyond...just a few miles from Grass Valley in California, and my situation is not unusual.

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

Re:VOIP sucks.

[DrgnDancer]

Are you sure your kids will ever be able to use cell phone or VOIP reliably when the power is out

Cell Phones are unaffected by all but the longest term power outages. For VOIP, they make these things called UPSes. A standard "10 minute" computer UPS can keep a cable (or DSL) modem, home router, and VOIP appliance running for hours. When I was living in downtown New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina we had constant power outages and they often lasted for a good long time. I dropped $50 on a separate UPS to handle the telephony and network stuff and never had a significant outage of communications (The one time I did have a short outage, the DSL went too, so it would have killed a "pure" land line).

and/or injured to the point of being unable to speek or under duress and told not to?

Here I assume you're talking about the ability for 911 operators to find you based on phone number you're calling from. I don't know what hole you've been hiding in, but VOIP operators have been registering addresses with 911 system for years. You can tell them not too if you chose, but that seems like a sucker's bet me to me (I guess if you really feel your privacy is more important than the ability for the ambulance to get to your house...) You're partially right about cell phones here, but many if not most have GPS chips now, so you can still be found in an emergency. Some don't though, so it is something to watch out for. To be reasonable though, whatever TV may tell you, there are a fairly limited number of emergencies that will render you able to dial 911, able to survive until help arrives, but completely unable to speak. It's not impossible, but hardly a common occurrence.

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

Re:Fantasies...

[Sponge Bath]

It can't be bargained with! It can't be reasoned with! It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!

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...

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

[Immostlyharmless]

Oops BYTE not bite...yeah, I know, I know, nerd card revoked..sigh

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.

No Landlines? Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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.

Bottled Water

[Duradin]

This plan is like saying municipal water is outdated and unnecessary because "everyone" can buy bottled water.

Don't take my POTS!

[bloosh]

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.

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.