Ask Slashdot: What Is the Future of Old Copper Pair Technology?

p00kiethebear writes "My father works for a large corporation that licenses ISDN lines (among a plethora of other services) including T1 and T3 technology. Surprisingly there are still large companies that use fifty year old T1 technology to handle their voice and data use. My father's 30 year career has been almost exclusively in helpdesk / troubleshooting T1 / ISDN technology and both he and I are worried about the future. Cable modems and DSL have replaced ISDN in most cases and it's now an archaic solution reserved for voice actors, tech support-terminal workers, large companies that need voice and video conferencing, and data and private users too far from the loop for DSL or Cable. My dad is still 15 years from retirement. Is twisted copper going the way of the dodo or is it here to stay for the foreseeable future?"

Comments

DSL over copper

[raburton]

The question seems to use copper wire and ISDN interchangeably. In the UK the DSL you mention runs over those copper wires, so they aren't going anywhere.

The helpdesk is not going the way of the dodo

[PolygamousRanchKid]

No matter how easy to use some new technology is, someone will still need help with it.

As to your father, he I'm guessing he will be able to learn enough to help others with it.

No matter how little you think you know about something, there are still plenty of other who know even less.

Worried about employability?

[EvilJoker]

If you're worried about your skills becoming obsolete, then GET NEW SKILLS! This isn't that hard. Anyone in a technology field should not expect to use the same skill set for 30 (!) years, let alone 45.

Granted, this far along in the process may experience a bit of a renaissance (much like COBOL programmers), but if job security is a concern, it's time for some new education/training.

Copper's got some HUGE advantages over fiber

[The Cisco Kid]

1. Its already there, pretty much everywhere.
2. Only one end needs to have power for it to work. (This is the "911 works even when the power is out" issue)
3. You don't need multi-thousand dollar tools to splice it or terminate it.
4. You don't need multi-hundred dollar equipment to connect to it.

Re:Copper's got some HUGE advantages over fiber

[Guspaz]

1. is not true in some places. Bell Aliant's territory (most of eastern Canada) is now primarily fiber, with very little copper left. They decided to replace their entire network, and then went and did it.
2. is partially true, but battery backups (frequently included in the install) keep things running for hours, making this much less of a problem than people think. Also, during extended power outages, the battery backups at your telco's CO only lasts so long, and they only have so many generators to recharge them with, so this problem affects copper too.
3. is misleading because fiber is cheaper to deploy on the whole, the cost of individual pieces of equipment is irrelevant when the overall process is cheaper.
4. is untrue, you can find GPON ONTs for $65 or less.

Re:Copper's got some HUGE advantages over fiber

[Guspaz]

The thing is the telephone companies have a strong incentive to step up to fiber. VDSL2 is not keeping up with cable developments (bonded DOCSIS 3 is already pushing multi-hundred megabit speeds to customers here, which VDSL2 can't match), and while you might top out VDSL2 at 100-200 megabits per second with vectoring and bonding, cable is on the cusp of moving to DOCSIS 3.1 which competes with GPON in shared throughput (10 gigabit).

VDSL2 is seen by Bell Canada (who own Bell Aliant doing the fiber deployments in eastern Canada) as a stepping stone. It keeps them competitive long enough to roll out more fiber. It definitely won't be 20 years before they've replaced most or all of their copper...

There's another scenario other than "buried" or "strung", which is "in a conduit". In fact, for people served by VDSL2, that is often already done. My VDSL2 is served, as are many other people in Montreal, by a DSLAM in my basement. Dedicated fiber enters my apartment building, and all the units are served VDSL2 over the copper phone lines in the building. At that point, you've done the hardest part of getting the fiber to the building already, and all you need to do is run the fiber through the building. That's not very hard. Bell Aliant has a neat PDF where they discuss all the different ways they wire up a building with fiber, based on the building itself and the requirements of the owners. It can be anything from pulling the copper wiring from the building's internal conduits and using compressed air to blow fiber up them, or they can drill a hole between each floor and run it along the hallway outside each apartment near the ceiling where it's invisible, or even leverage a building's existing ethernet infrastructure if one exists (infrequent as that case might be).

In terms of battery backup, well, personally I'd have battery capacity to go beyond a few hours, but the vast majority of people won't. For them, there may be other options (cellular, for example), but the reality is that the copper infrastructure will eventually be completely replaced, so these problems are going to occur sooner or later. Rather than citing it as a reason copper should stick around, since that won't happen, finding a solution to the problem is more productive. I can think of a few mechanisms that might extend the lifespan of the batteries. Obviously, if you're using lead acid, you're going to want a lithium ion battery in there, but beyond that, a low power mode specifically designed to keep nothing but telephony working during a power outage could greatly extend the battery life. Perhaps, in such a mode, you could shut down the optical transceiver entirely until somebody actually picks up the phone, for example. Battery usage apart from when somebody is actually using a telephone would be minimal, to the extent that a relatively modest battery could easily provide days (or more) of telephone connectivity.

My understanding is that current battery backups for ONTs just provide power to keep the thing going as usual doing a power failure, but specific support for power saving could extend this greatly...

Cable != ISDN / T1 / T3

[gravis777]

ISDN, T1 and T3 lines are dedicated, whereas cable is shared. ISDN, T1 and T3 lines are also synchronous connections. Even in business-class cable and DSL connections, I rarely see synchronous speeds (doesn't mean they don't exist, just means that they seem to be rare). In the larger cities, I see major companies going to Fiber connections, but in smaller cities and towns, T1 and T3s are still the way to go.

Our company still has ISDN lines as backups when the fiber fails.

At least in the States, where you have a lot of smaller towns and rural areas with sometiimes hundreds of miles between them and the largest hub, I see copper pair staying around for a while yet.

Re:Cable != ISDN / T1 / T3

[mwissel]

Even in business-class cable and DSL connections, I rarely see synchronous speeds (doesn't mean they don't exist, just means that they seem to be rare).

By any chance you meant to write symmetric instead of synchronous? As in, upstream and downstream bandwidth are the same?

If so, then you need to find the right ISP. You could always order S(symmetric)DSL connections, but they are usually much more expensive than ADSL in both monthly fees and modems, thus they are rare. Most end users either don't need the upsteam provided by SDSL for the given cost or realize this through other technologies because they need even more than DSL's capabilities.

However, it's (at least in my area) not the lack of availability but the lousy cost-performance-ratio that drives customers away from Symmetric DSL.

ISDN is great!

[Animats]

ISDN voice is great. No lag beyond speed of light lag. No jitter. No dropouts. No analog noise. True full duplex. End to end digital. It's telephony perfected. Switzerland has residential ISDN, and when I get calls from Switzerland, they're so clear.

Far, far better than cellular or VoIP. I'm really tired of voice cell conversations with a full second of lag in them. Sometimes there's so much lag the echo suppressors can't cope.

Why are we putting up with crap voice quality on telephones?

Re:Copper?

[RulerOf]

Expensive, but rock solid and quick (vs fast).

Every time I see a statement like this, it reminds me we could really use some better single-word descriptors to disambiguate a connection that is

• High vs. Low bandwidth
• High vs. Low Latency
• All possible combinations of the two

Not that we don't understand what you meant of course! I just have a feeling that "fast" or "quick" will be rather ambiguous ways to describe a network connection for a rather long time :P

Re:Copper?

[Lumpy]

You are funny.

If you think telcos will happily abandon 50+ year old wiring and gleefully pull fiber everywhere, you are living in a wierd utopian dream.

Reality is that Telcos will fight tooth and nail to spend a dime on infrastructure. Copper twisted pair will be around for another 100 years simply because of the extreme greed that american telecommunications companies enjoy. You see, replacing all that with fiber to each home will reduce profits by 25%. and we absolutely can not tolerate reduced profits in any way. American companies will kill babies for increased profits, and have done so in the past.

The only way to get away from century old copper wire is to regulate the telecommunications industry and force them at gunpoint to start pulling fiber to the home at NO COST TO THE CONSUMER. No "infrastructure recovery fee" or any other added secret fee to the customer, the CEO and the stockholders have to suck it up.

Re:Copper?

[VanGarrett]

Because the telcos all have their own bottomless pit full of money, and uprooting their entire infrastructure should really just be a drop in the bucket to them.

If the telcos are to be forced to replace their infrastructure, then they should be subsidized for doing so. At the same time, there should be no subsidies of that sort that should be coming from our government until our politicians can get their shit together and get our treasury into a manageable state. In the mean time, it is reasonable for telcos to charge a fee to customers who want them to install fiber to their homes.

Diminishing use, means fewer employees

[evilviper]

Copper will definitely be around for another 15 years, easily. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean you're guaranteed a job if that's all you know. When any technology becomes less popular quickly, there's a glut of personnel, and massive layoffs can be expected.

Copper is sure to remain in-use. While Verizon is (very slowly) going fully fiber to the home with FIOS, AT&T is sticking with U-Verse, which is fiber to the block, with copper still making-up the last mile. And that installed base of T-1s and T-3s isn't about to just go away. But like I said, telcos will need fewer and fewer people around to support the dwindling customer base, so layoffs are likely.

And besides twisted pair, there's no sign of coax disappearing any time soon.

As others have said, you should have be brushing up on your fiber optic skills. In fact you should have been learning about fiber 15 years ago like I did. That was back when every ISP on the planet was pulling huge amounts of fiber across the planet, and the future of data was obviously going to be fiber. Now, wireless (802.11 & LTE) are undercutting the bright future I expected for fiber, but only slightly, as fiber is usually the backhaul for those technologies as well.

Re:T1s still work for us

[dgatwood]

Private fiber links will likely render even that use obsolete eventually. It's just a question of how long it will take before the cost comes down and availability goes up.