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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."
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...
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 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.
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.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
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.
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.
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.