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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?"
All of that wiring will be reclaimed. It's not worth as much as wiring as it is in thousands of other items. Even the copper coated steel wiring is worth more as other things. You have fiber and wireless and I don't see anything else soon.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
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.
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.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
In germany some people ha e 20MBit DSL connections via old copper phone cables. The problem not having that throuhgput are usually interconnections, and not the twisted pairs.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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.
ATT is forcing DSL users to switch to Uverse fiber-to-the-box with short copper to the home.
I got a tour of a central office a while ago. Entire floors were empty as the old copper infrastructure was removed
They called it "mining" the old copper
The technicians say that no money is being spent to upgrade the copper infrastructure that remains. It will continue to decay until it fails
Yes, copper will survive into the future, but there will be less of it, and the quality will be worse
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.
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.
As for helpdesk support... support isn't going anywhere. Although I feel like it's a fruitless pursuit to spend your entire career in. If you're 15 years away from retirement, I would seriously be looking for opportunities for education and advancement, to a more managerial position, where you could have more impact, and maybe get a higher inome for a better retirement.
As you mentioned.... people too far for DSL.
Aside from clear channel DS3; which I don't think is even an argument, that those are going anywhere -- businesses still buy those. And the capacity and assurance that the bandwidth will be available is much higher than DSL.
As you didn't mention... businesses that need something more reliable than DSL, and a SLA from their telecommunications provider. DSL is typically best-effort by the ILEC; sometimes taking 48 to 72 hours to repair. ISDN services are less fragile, and typically have a tigher SLA for diagnosis and repair -- and hey the insult required to break ISDN are essentially drastic situations like stray voltage on the line, cut or short-circuit.
DSL reception can be totally broken, or the speed suddenly greatly diminished, by a huge variety of minor insults to the copper, where electrical continuity isn't lost.
The performance you will get from a T1 link by contrast, is pretty much a certain thing, barring severe damage to the copper.
Businesses requiring POTS applications; believe it or not, VoIP doesn't work for just anything, and still might not be preferred even if it's cheaper; the reliability and security characteristics of POTS may be preferred.
For example: IT security departments like POTS, because VoIP is so vulnerable, and easy to record, intercept, and forge calls, in case of network intrusion.
Various applications work better with POTS, such as fax machines and alarm systems. In large sites, there is likely to be some need, and maybe enough need that a PRI or channelized T1 is required for 24 phone lines.
Existing services where T1/T3 is already in place are unlikely to be changed; where they are filling the need. Not every business wants to tempt fate by switching kinds of service if there is no need to it --- for the forseeable future, there is no massive exodus for DSL.
DS3 signalling isn't going anywhere either; it's the way of muxing a bunch of T1s or SLA guaranteed customer circuits for circuit protection and mapping across the transport network infrastructure. A bunch of DS0s become DS1s; a bunch of DS1s become DS3s; a bunch of DS3s become OC-xxx; a bunch of those so-called obsolete T1s form the backbone of a telco transport network.
You seem to be focused on BRI ISDN which is what is used by those you referenced (TV remotes, voice actors, etc). It is an extremely low bandwidth connection (128 Kbps) but "it works" and is probably not going away anytime soon. PRI is probably much more prevalent. PRI is what I would consider the T1 of ISDN. It is commonly used for enterprise PBX systems, and I definitely don't see it going away anytime soon. The only other realistic option I see at present is SIP, but even then unless it's delivered over fiber SIP services are still probably going to come in over some kind of copper medium (be it T1, etc). Some companies are moving to fiber, but there is usually considerably more cost associated with bringing fiber to the premises as compared to copper which likely is already on premise.
My company has fiber on premise for IP, but we still have PRIs from the LEC for our voice service. Any time you bring voice in over an IP transport (as in SIP), you have to make sure the IP network has proper QoS, etc whereas PRI "just works". PRI is usually more expensive, but not overly so. When we replaced our PBX a few years ago we considered SIP, but when we presented the various options to the powers that be, they chose to stick with PRI because it has a proven track record whereas SIP was just gaining traction in the market.
I think in 15 years you will definitely see fiber steal a large market share of those customers that are currently using copper, but I think there will still be plenty of copper around.
Like someone else commented, the poster uses terms "Copper" and "ISDN" interchangeably. However, with the inclusion of terms like T1/T3, it's clearly about "what can an old telco-guy do in this newfangled IP-based world with 15 years before retirement". Copper here is a misnomer, a lot of stuff can happen over copper (DSLs being the most obvious example).
I have some familiarity in just how dead the technology is. We have a big customer who just placed a big order for Cisco's PVDM digital modems. Why "big", if the tech is dying? Well, that stuff is going to end-of-sale after this summer and they have lot of legacy systems around the globe that dial in (machine-to-machine stuff, and not easily upgradeable everywhere at once). They are moving to IP-based systems but cannot really do that fast enough. Anyway, one of the biggest vendors of network equipment just decided that they aren't going to sell modems that can talk directly to E1/T1 line (analog 2-port models are still in the selection though). I don't know that anyone else is selling such stuff either (Alcatel maybe?). That technology had it's day, but it's long gone.
There might of course be places where, due to signaling constraints, you need to run a E1/T1, but it doesn't really use any of the features. You just run PPP over that link and be done with it - no one cares about the intricasies of Q.931 framing or setting up calls for such links. Even in telephony, it will continue to have some uses, for example many PBX systems still only provide E1/T1 uplink - even if it's going to be used just to connect couple of feet to the SIP gateway right at the next rack.
Frankly, your father has two choices: Either
a) Get entrenched into some niche that really can keep on going with ISDN-based technologies for the next 15 years - you know, maintain job security by being the "only one left who understands this piece of legacy junk that we cannot migrate away from fast". Frankly, I find such positions hard to imagine - sure, maybe if he was retiring in this decade, it could work, but hardly in the 2020's.
or
b) Join the IP world. Frankly, I would think that with a reasonable effort he could still become an expert in VoIP - you still need skills like provisioning (for QoS), codecs (even the G.711a/mu-law is relevant), and so on. Lot of the concepts in SIP are still based on the good old stuff from telco days. You just need to wrap your head around the concept that instead of TDM sending each frame at exactly right intervals, you get packets that might occasionally get lost or routed wrongly or arrive out-of-order...And frankly, you also don't need to care anymore about stuff like SPID's or TEIs. Which I would think of a relief.
I'm an engineer with one of the largest communications companies in the U.S.. It will be a long time before we see reliable high speed saturation in the more rural regions... mostly because of the prohibitive cost of deployment. OP's dad may need to move or telecommute at some point...but his skill set will be needed for some time to come.
It seems pretty clear to me that circuit switched networks will be phased out in the next 10 years.
They're coming back. They're just called "software defined networks" now. Look at what OpenFlow really does.
We use FIOS for our internet connectivity, but we still rely on MPLS over T1s to interconnect our offices and handle our VOIP traffic. VPN over the public internet simply had too much latency to be useful. It's archaic, but it works.
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?
The dinosaurs adapted - they grew wings and trained humans to build them houses and bags of high quality food.
I say let those two long-suffering wires finally get it on with each other... enough with the twists and stress and tension already!
Which is utterly incapable of replacing copper pair for the simple reason known as "physics".
Really? There are millions of people running their successful small businesses on various combinations of GSM, CDMA, 3G, 4G, 802.11, and WiMax.
Most small firms don't have huge bandwidth or speed needs. They need a payment terminal to process credit cards, an email client to handle customer service, a web browser to look up parts and order materials online, someone to advertise on Google and Facebook and Twitter, and maybe an online QuickBooks account. But most of these people spend the bulk of their days on the sales floor or in the workshop. They don't need a land line, or a server rack, or even a T1. These small businesses used to use dial-up, but everything they need now is available via cellular towers and iPhones.
They don't need the constant reliability that a remote technology worker might need. If the network is down, there's always another order to be filled, a floor to be swept, or shelves to be straightened.
Their buildings still have Cat-3 wiring and old POTS phones gathering dust in the backrooms. But there's no dialtone on them anymore, and there won't be.
John
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.
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