The AM Forum

Do you still use POTS?  Like your copper land line?  Reliable right?  Sounds good compared to cell phone audio doesn't it?  You punch in a phone number and you talk to someone.  Nice and simple--what's not to like.  If you are one of the 76 million AT&T users in 22 states, you have 3 or 4 more years before you will be forced to QSY to VOIP, or some kind of wireless service.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324439804578104820999974556.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

It costs lots of dollars keeping that old twisted-pair technology alive and running, and with a declining base for this stuff, it makes a lot of business sense. I'm surprised they haven't moved on it sooner. Actually I not really really surprised having worked for the original"AT&T" for a number of years. You milk it till it goes dry. They are also investing $14 billion to significantly expand wireless and wireline broadband networks, support future IP data growth and new services.

Okay, I have Verizon, not AT&T.  I don't know what kind of fiber service AT&T will provide as a replacement for copper, but my Verizon FiOS has as good if not better audio quality than I had with copper, and with a far lower noise floor.  And there is no noticeable latency as experienced with VOIP type phone service like Cablevision's Optonline, for example. 

I had thought that Verizon's FiOS phone service was VOIP but I was corrected by the installer when I had it installed some 5 years ago.  He stated that although it is fiber service, it is NOT VOIP. 

So, not every non-copper telephone service is alike. 

The only drawback is that the system is powered by my electrical service with a backup battery that keeps the phone up on standby for something like 8 hours (overly optimistic, in my opinion).  But using the phone drains the backup battery quickly, as I discovered last week when my power was out after Hurricane Sandy.  So, during a long power outage, your phone will be out also, even if there is no damage to the fiber lines.  When I ran my backup power generator, my phone worked as good as ever.

It is doubtful that any decent land-line service will ever sound as bad as even the best cell phone.  I would expect a company like AT&T to have reasonably high quality non-copper phone service. 

AT&T?

I thought they were merely the name acquired by a cell phone company a few years back??

Around here Verizon has the installed base of copper, afaik.

                  _-_-bear

Perhaps a little background is in order for you, Bear:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T

well, if they want to change things, they will have to tear out the 60 year old outside plant here and put in fiber, and a little box at the house so my POTS telephones work. That will cost them a lot of money but it's not my problem. I've seen this before. They put a box somewhere, in the garage or elsewhere, and it takes fiber in one end and out comes POTS and an ethernet jack. The box usually has a 6-8AH battery for backup.

I can see them removing the copper trunks. The copper thieves will have a wild time.

If it even smells like they are going to increase the price or reduce service, I can easily consider another provider since the eimination of a hard line will instantly void any advantage of the present POTS situation.

I also have the inexpensive lifeline service so the invalid low income person here can have a phone for a few bucks a month, otherwise I would not have the POTS having a cellphone already.

"There are levels of existence we are willing to accept"

AT&T has U-verse Fiber Technology.

Never noticed that problem with my phone service with Optonline.

Back in the "good old days"(i.e. before  divestiture) that probably would be a good bet.

I am very happy with our Verizon FIOS service.  We got it early on and have had very good service from it.  As Eric pointed out, much better signal to noise ratio than the old copper lines.  To check for downward compatibility, I plugged in my old phone with a rotary dial and it works perfect on the FIOS system.  

Several friends are still getting Verizon telephone service with copper because they live in very rural areas.  Verizon has not run any fiber to their homes since they are so isolated.  When they do have a problem with copper, the service has been less than stellar to get it fixed.  So bad in fact that some have switch to their cable provider to get telephone service.  

Yes, the limited battery back-up time could be a problem unless you have a generator or some bigger batteries to keep the copper to fiber box alive during extended outages.  

Joe, W3GMS

Eric, apparently FiOS does not require street power to run, unlike cable services (at least around here).  We don't have FiOS available in this area (too bad, or I would get it!), but the cable infrastructure dies when the street power dies. Does FiOS require street power along the way in order for the system to function?

During the big ice storm here 2 years ago (10 days, no power), the cable system died due to lack of power, so everyone with cable phones lost their telephone service and of course all other similarly delivered services went out as well.  Finally, the cable company put generators in various places to keep the system active, but it was out for a long time before the generators were put in.

I still have a land line here and don't have cable TV here.

When our street power dies, we still have phone service with fios as long as the battery back-up on our fios box is good. 
Joe, GMS 

It is Fairpoint up here who bought Verizons LL installed base, I havent heard of any changes yet.

Dirty COPPERS!

Joe:

Have to poke you.... :-)

With copper POTS, when you lost power, the phones almost always worked. With my FIOS home interface package, I am responsible for BBU battery replacement. Also, this package draws a constant 20 watts...forever. How will that affect your power bill long-term compared to your old copper POTS? :-)

My girlfriend had a ground loop after Sandy on her phone. They ripped the copper out and put a FIOS interface in her home. They did not give her an option.

73,
Dan

The latency of Optonline is not that bad, compared to a cell phone, for example. But it is there.  It's noticeable if you're on the phone with someone and on the radio at the same time.  The phone lags the radio.  Latency only becomes a problem if it is bad enough that you end up talking over each other like what does occur more often in cell phone conversations.  I prefer latency that I can't detect. 

Eric

I would suspect that this does not impact 99.9999999999999% of the users.

Hi Dan and good to hear from you!

Yep, agree completely about the cost and the responsibility shift back to the user is some cases.  I also understand that once the install is done, the next battery is on you!  Maybe I am getting use to these kind of things :).  

All electric and phone utilities around here are buried.  Over the years we had excessive hum on the old POTS line.  It turned out the wrong phone cable was buried.  Then a few years went by and this time is was a bad cable pair where the phone lines went above ground and out on the pole. They then just found a line without hum and connected me to that pair.  We are out in the country and the copper around here is getting old and unless required is not being maintained. So even though it cost me a bit more, I am happy with the FIOS and our home phone is far better quality than our cell phone.  

We still get our TV over the Direct TV dish.  Between the two it cost me way more than I think its worth, but that's the only way I can get the History Channel and a handful of others which are not available from the regular TV stations.  So I pay and complain ;).

Joe, GMS        

Joe:

OK, I am letting off the hook! :-)

BTW, almost finished a new dipole for 75M. Had fun with the MFJ analyzers, grid-dip meter and the Heath AM-1 I bought at Near-Fest when I saw you.

Will be on this fall and winter.

73,
Dan

Where I'm at there is no other option to POTS. Cell service is weak to non-existant during the warmer months when the leaves are on the trees. I don't see ATT running U-verse out here anytime soon.  Getting DSL out here was a circus and ATT still doesn't recognize my little neighborhood as having DSL even though it's been here for 8 or so years when SNET was the DSL provider before the takeover. I'm the only one on the street with DSL and it works 100%.  The few neighbors I have were surprised to learn that I have DSL because they've been denied DSL access when querying ATT.  I ended up getting DSL back then because at the time I had dial up and was constantly tying up the phone which annoyed the XYL.  So I contacted SNET for a 2nd phone line. When the tech came to the residence to hookup I asked him about DSL. He stated that it runs from the center of town out to the next little borough on the main route. SNET themselves didn't even know at the time that DSL was delivered here.  So while the tech was here I called SNET and told them that I wanted DSL. Went through their spiel and again denied. Handed the phone to the tech and 3 days later was connected to DSL.

When I had my old analog cellphone years back I held out until the cell carrier sent me a letter stating that my analog service was done and had to upgrade. I actually got disconnected, no service. They weren't kidding.

I'm would suspect that every "X" number of feet there is a powered fiber optics line repeater amp, so if you lose power here, battery backup won't help you.

I am sure your right on that Pete.  We have one of those boxes just down the road where all the fiber lines go into.  Sometime when the technician is doing service work in the box I will stop and see what kind of back-up power those boxes have.  I would think that it would be greater up time than the subscribers fiber to copper box.   

Joe, GMS

Re: Latency

It's not like POTS is pure analog. It's only analog to the CO. From there to at least the far end CO it's digital. Depending on where you live, the analog may go digital before the CO if there is a SLC or RCU in your neighborhood.

The Wall Street Journal site requires that I pay before I can read the story. There are, however, lots of other sites that have the same info.

I doubt this is anything but a trial balloon intended to gauge the reactions of various public-service agencies. Copper facilities are a "sunk cost" for at&t and Verizon: they paid for the cables, by and large, decades ago, and modern plastic insulation means that a cable can last fifty years.

What the "old line" phone companies are really after is the chance to eliminate any "outside plant" that they have to share with their competition. Copper cables have to be shared, which means that smaller, more agile competitive companies get to rent pairs from "Mother Bell" at discount rates, and in the process, they get to show up Ma Bell's monopoly pricing model and mediocre service.

The one thing monopolies are afraid of is that customers will realize they have other options, and that means that they want to eliminate their competitors. Since they are not required to share fiber-to-the-home links with others, they like them a lot.

FWIW.

73,

Bill, W1AC

"Mother Bell" and "Ma Bell's" died in 1984 along with their monopoly. Now they're just a big company trying to keep their feet above water.

How many choices do you have when it comes to getting a phone installed in your home? Never mind cellular: how many "wired" companies are available to you? More to the point, how many are available to your boss when he needs lines for his business? The vast majority of business phone lines are still wired and still provided by the ILEC in your area, and they are a monopoly in all but name.

Bill, W1AC

What's a telephone?

Most of the younger generation only have cell phones.
Some only watch TV via the Internet, no cable. My son for example.
All they want is a good Internet connection.
If it weren't for the blackout rules on Internet sports sites like MLB.com, that's all I'd want too, my smart phone and a good Internet connection

(And my ham antennas up a lot higher and some stinking sun spots)

No different than your water, gas and electricity. What's your point?

My point is the same one you just made: there is no difference between my water, or gas, or electric service and the choice I have for dial tone: there are other options which are available, but not practical.

In the case of dial tone, my point is that I don't think the monopoly disappeared, as WA2CWA contends. The labels may have changed, but there's still no meaningful choice available to landline customers.

My water is from town wells, so my choice there is to pay the town or cart my own. Not much of a choice, but still there: rearranging my pipes to have a greywater supply for toilets and to collect & filter rainwater for drinking would cost a lot, but I know it has been done and that I could do it if the town water got too expensive.

My gas is from the local utility. I could heat my home with wood or coal if I wanted to. Again, not much of a choice, but still doable, and my son is staying in a wood-heated home right now. So, again, I know I could do that if I chose.

My electricity comes from National Grid, and although there are various bulk resellers competing for my attention, their rates are all comparable, so there's little advantage in switching. I could, however, do without if I chose to do so, and I know a family that does: they have solar arrays and a backup generator and no connection to the grid. It could be done if I chose to do it.

There is no company available to provide POTS service to my home other than the ILEC, which is Verizon in my area. I don't consider Comcast to be a viable alternative: their rates are exorbitant, their service (at least when I used it some year ago) was abysmal, and the "cable modem" only has backup power for a few hours during a power failure.

We could debate, at great length, the question of whether cellular is a viable alternative to POTS service. For some residential users, the prices may have dropped to a point where pre-payed phones are affordable by lower income consumers, but they will never be at the "Lifeline" rates my state PUC mandates for elderly, infirm, and handicapped consumers, and even if they were, those rates don't include Internet access ("tethering" doesn't count, given the bandwidth limits and the high costs of plans that allow it).

Anyway, the choices that residential customers have are not the issue: for a business user, there's only one meaningful choice, and that's the ILEC.  A corporate manager isn't likely to pay his employees to cart water, to tend a fire, or to maintain a solar array, and he won't consider exotic and unreliable alternatives to the wired phone network either. It's just not a viable option given the costs of paying his workers, vs. the potential discounts.

Mother Bell didn't die: she just changed her dress and learned a new dance.

YMMV.

Bill, W1AC

Absolutely, Bill. AT&T went out and bought back BellSouth down here. I have Verizon cell. I just could see paying $80.00 for landline when I can get cell for $55. Of course, there are dead spots even here on the ridge, but when I finish paying off the place, I hope to have some put a cell tower up here.
                                                   Joe W4AAB

OK. So we've established that there is little or no choice in water and electricity. So what? This is nothing new. Monopolies are legal when the government declares them so. They are not monopolies when the government declares so. The government has declared that Ma Bell is no longer a monopoly. Continued rants against Ma Bell equate to peeing in the ocean. The reality is that there is more choice in phone service now than ever before.

There is no question that copper pairs are an expensive and antiquated way to provide plain old telephone service these days.  The reliability factor of twisted pairs is/was pretty good, however, and even though fiber is an excellent replacement for the copper cables, it has considerable vulnerability.  There is still a lot of aerial fiber out there and when you lose a big fiber cable as a result of a car hitting a pole or a tree limb crashing through a cable, you lose a lot of traffic. Buried fiber is great, but even it has its limitations and occasionally gets dug-up or cut by contractors.  Fiber sure can provide a lot of bandwidth capacity and that is what makes it really attractive.

As for wireless service, the dirty little secret is that probably over 90% of the wireless network is land-line, whether it is copper or fiber.  Only the last link from the cell site to the mobile is radio.  Of course there may be a few microwave links along the way providing T-1s or DS-3 service to cell sites, but most of those links are land-line copper or fiber.  It is also interesting to note the traffic limitations of the cellular/wireless network.  When there is a storm or other disaster that knocks out land line services, not only are the cell sites cut-off from the network, but the wireless network itself goes down because it can't handle the traffic load of everyone trying to access circuits at the same time.  This is true also with the old copper and switch network as well, but when that service is down, people may expect that wireless will always be there and that is just not the case.  Ask the folks who have experienced recent disasters such as hurricanes and wide spread damage from tornadoes, etc.

Oh well, when all else fails, call on Amateur Radio (or resort to smoke signals).

As with the demise of all older technology, there is a certain sadness and nostalgia associated with the change, but progress is progress.
I spent 43 years in the telecommunications industry and I participated in the introduction of fiber and wireless.  I'm sure that the problems associated with the switch-over to fiber will eventually be eliminated or greatly reduced.

73,  Jack, W9GT

Yes, fiber rules. PTP air links for backhaul are becoming more and more prevalent. WiMax and other Ethernet via RF technologies are growing like crazy. Many companies are producing microwave backhaul with 100 Mbps capacity and a few are now at 1 Gbps. Lots of stuff going on in the 60-80 GHz range, not to mention 6, 11 and 23 GHz.

Actually, in our area during the Sandy hurricane and its aftermath, my cell phone was the only working communication tool other then listening to the radio.



Since the majority of my entire working career was with Bell Labs, AT&T, and Lucent, I've seen and/or was involved in many telecommunications changes, advances, innovations, etc. over the years. Thinking back, I've never viewed change with any sadness.

"Ma Bell" and her "System" passed on in 1984.

All comments here have been interesting.  In the mid-'eighties I was with a group of engineers from ABC at a conference with AT&T engineers and executives where we discussed distribution of premium pay-TV programming direct to homes by fiber in competition with cable companies. AT&T told us that even though they had financial resources then to begin conversion to fiber distribution, they were adamant that copper would remain indefinitely on the last link (pole-to-house) because of their (then) absolute reliance on a self-powered system. The rechargeable battery concept was totally rejected, and they would not consider running copper with fiber together on the last link - end of story. That philosophy shows the importance once attached to a self-powered telephone system that obviously had to change with new circumstances.

What disrturbs me far more than trivialities of telephone power is our nation's dependence on possibly vulnerable satellites for marine and business communications and, above all, strategic military operations.

Why?

The answer is, or should be, self-evident.

In any case the issue is off topic and I apologize for raising it.

I once had a debate with Nicholas Negroponte, the author of The Negroponte Switch, which predicted that all wireless communicaiton would convert to wireless, vice versa. I argued that geostationary satellites should be considered a special case of "wired" communication, but the author of "Being Digital" demurred without forcing me to admit how silly I was.

It's only natural to cling to the things we grew up with: I thought the #5 crossbar was the best telephone switch ever, and I thought the #1 ESS was a kludge that came off the drawing board too quickly. I, however, am not a switch designer, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I'm not so sure, however, that "progress" is always, well, progress. Many of the "advances" that have occurred in the phone network are actually (IMNSHO) counter-productive, intrusive steps backwards.

I guess I am getting old.  ;)

73,

Bill, W1AC

What advances?

Not looking for an argument. I was genuinely curious. All comms systems come with risk. Was wondering why you found the satcom risk level unacceptable.

I am disturbed by total reliance on satellites; there is a difference between that and finding it "unacceptable" as mis-stated. Backhaul was mentioned earlier. Broadcasters use redundancy in backhauls just as there is redundancy in many parts of the broadcast system for reliability of service. There is financial incentive for that. National security is at risk for our growing dependence solely on satellites, however, and that is disturbing.

This is a strange conversation for December 7.

Good enough. I have not seen anything close to total reliance on satcom, most especially in the national security arena. And the military conducts a huge amount of their comms, maybe the bulk on the Internet. It would seem the hacker threat there exceeds any threat to satcom. Of course the internet is much more fault tolerant than satcom, so who knows.