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The Dismantling of POTS: Bold Move Or Grave Error?
New submitter TheRealHocusLocus writes "The FCC is drafting rules to formalize the process of transition of 'last-mile' subscriber circuits to digital IP-based data streams. The move is lauded by AT&T Chairman Tom Wheeler who claims that significant resources are spent to maintain 'legacy' POTS service, though some 100 million still use it. POTS, or 'Plain Old Telephone Service,' is the analog standard that allows the use of simple unpowered phone devices on the wire, with the phone company supplying ring and talk voltage. I cannot fault progress, in fact I'm part of the problem: I gave up my dial tone a couple years ago because I needed cell and could not afford to keep both. But what concerns me is, are we poised to dismantle systems that are capable of standing alone to keep communities and regions 'in-touch' with each other, in favor of systems that rely on centralized (and distant) points of failure? Despite its analog limitations POTS switches have enforced the use of hard-coded local exchanges and equipment that will faithfully complete local calls even if its network connections are down. But do these IP phones deliver the same promise? For that matter, is any single local cell tower isolated from its parent network of use to anyone at all? I have had a difficult time finding answers to this question, and would love savvy Slashdot folks to weigh in: In a disaster that isolates the community from outside or partitions the country's connectivity — aside from local Plain Old Telephone Service, how many IP and cell phones would continue to function?"
Really, why do we think that POTS would continue if we were partitioned or that data lines were taken down?
Because POTS will work in some of the worst environmental conditions possible. It survived the nuclear bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has been through hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and even meteor strikes and kept working. Yes, some parts of the system failed, but for those parts that were still connected as long as a local power source (often just a battery bank) supplied power the system kept working.
It was on the back of the POTS system that the internet was born, and has always been a backup to every computer network system... even if it wasn't perfect at least *something* would get through in terms of data.
1. If a hurricane/tornado/earthquake/what-have-you destroys your POTS infrastructure, it can take weeks or months to rebuild it. You can restore cell service in matter of hours with a mobile cell site.
2. The same applies to your house. What good is a fixed, "simple" phone if your house isn't there any more?
3. One of the biggest issues when a disaster strikes is locating people. POTS doesn't do anything to help with this.
POTS was great but it's had it's time and we need to stop supporting it and move on newer technologies.
As someone who builds and installs large phone systems for a living, I cringe whenever a customer tells me "Yeah we've got a T1, coming in over Time Warner."
A traditional copper PRI from Verizon is the ideal service I like most of my customers to have, I never get anywhere near the same level complaints of call quality issues or service outages for a traditional PRI that I get for any PRI coming in over the internet. Well, except after hurricane Sandy, after that storm we had a number of customers switch over to an IP based PRI or a pure SIP solution. It made sense since it took Verizon months to fix their wiring, but a lot of these customers that switched wanted to immediately switch back as soon as Verizon was available again since the quality was so god awful.
I have no problem with Verizon using fiber and IP based telephony in the back end since I they're not going to be able to maintain their legacy equipment forever. But, don't send everything down the same pipe and just install a $200 Adtran on-site and expect it to be anywhere near as reliable. Especially since a lot of the support engineers for these carriers have no idea how to do anything with an IAD. I've had support engineers tell me I need to send a SIP redirect to forward calls out with the proper caller ID, well sure I'd love to except I'm being handed a PRI and the SIP side of things is all them.
Anyway, for customers that have rock solid internet and a separate dedicated pipe for a SIP trunk, I have no problem going native SIP all the way to our equipment. My problem is when someone out in the boonies thinks they'll save a ton of money switching to VoIP service from their cable provider. Instead it just means dozens of billable hours trying to explain to this customer that while their internet service is excellent for checking Facebook, good voice quality requires a solid internet connection with little to no packet loss and very low latency and nothing we can do to their PBX will change that. Although as one coworker pointed out, as the number of people who grew up using cell phones all their life increases, the less complaints we will receive. People who are used to POTS lines are going to be used to picking up a phone and having excellent call quality, people who grew up with cell phones are much more accustomed to jitter, echo, and poor call quality so I'm sure they'll be fine in a pure IP telephony world.
Over what wiring, DSL? Those copper phone lines are going to be scrapped and DSL will be gone too. No, Fiber will not replace them because it isn't profitable enough. Verizon considers FIOS to be a mistake. This is all about AT&T and Verizon completely abandoning wireline and replacing it with wireless. Unlike wireline POTS, wireless is completely regulated and comes with zero quality of service guarantees. There are zero requirements that a cell phone site stay up during a power outage. The government tried to require that each cell site have 8 hours worth of backup power available, but the wireless industry fought it and won. There are zero guarantees about the signal strength being adequate in the entirety of the wireline markets being abandoned. When it is all said and done there are going to be many homes with zero telecommunications at all. Don't count on the FCC to provide consumer protections either. The FCC chairman is a former cable company lobbyist. Might as well ask a former CEO of BP to oversee offshore oil drilling safety and disaster mitigation.
Wireless is also more lucrative because they can charge many times more for data. Why provide 100s of gigabytes on a wireline when at the same price you can offer single digits worth of gigabytes and charge up the wazoo with overages. This reform is more about the Verizon and AT&T raping and pillaging of the consumer via overpriced wireless data in areas without cable internet and allowing cable companies to become the monopoly for all wireline based communications than it is about promoting technical innovation. Replacing wireline with wireless is much like the power company deciding that providing wired electricity is too expensive and selling batteries to their customers is a suitable replacement.
I agree. However, I could agree to dismantling of POTS if they FIRST also lessen regulations on a swath of HAM for use by the public, and also legalize packet radio over CB, Family band, and other public use frequencies. We have the technology to radio for help in times of emergency -- Indeed HAM operators are sometimes on the scene in disasters before paramedics arrive. They already play a role in Earthquakes and other times when infrastructure is threatened. Lower the barrier for the common man to have greater ability to communicate first then I'll reconsider my stance on our keeping wired POTS going.
We have the technology for radios to negotiate to noise free channels automatically -- hell, my cheap wifi router does this. The cellular system exists, but we need a similar mesh network for the common people. The EM spectrum belongs to We the People, give us back some damn air waves instead of charging us for all of them. It's the information age, yet outdated packet radio laws remain repressive to progress. Problem is that the government can't just throw a kill switch on public powered wireless devices -- Like they can on the Internet (and probably telephone too).
It would be foolish to ignore that the government has an Internet Kill Switch, vast spying infrastructures, and a pro-censorship anti-discourse agenda whereby government agents actually plan to expose porn habits to silence dissent, while considering migrating any communication medium to IP based services. Furthermore -- The price of bits does not reflect the cost to distribute them. Cellular plans make a mockery of POTS long distance fees, and though it's never been cheeper to move bits the prices aren't going down nearly as fast as in foreign markets with actual competition. We need less regulation of the public sector and more regulation of the private sector's price fixed oligopoly before I'd ever advocate for tossing POTS out. Additionally: Unwarranted metadata collection is too powerful a tool already -- If Snoden can infiltrate PRISM, so can spies from enemy states.
Beware: When those in power advocate change, the changes suggested never give those they have power over more freedom.