AT&T signals end of copper land line service

[K5UJ]

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

[Pete, WA2CWA]

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.

[WB2CAU]

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. 

[WBear2GCR]

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

[WB2CAU]

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

[Opcom]

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"

[Pete, WA2CWA]

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. 

AT&T has U-verse Fiber Technology.

And there is no noticeable latency as experienced with VOIP type phone service like Cablevision's Optonline, for example. 

Never noticed that problem with my phone service with Optonline.

I would expect a company like AT&T to have reasonably high quality non-copper phone service. 

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

[W3GMS]

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

[steve_qix]

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.

[W3GMS]

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 

[KM1H]

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

[WU2D]

Dirty COPPERS!

[W1DAN]

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

[WB2CAU]

And there is no noticeable latency as experienced with VOIP type phone service like Cablevision's Optonline, for example. 

Never noticed that problem with my phone service with Optonline.

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

[Pete, WA2CWA]

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. 

Eric

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

[W3GMS]

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

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        

[W1DAN]

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

[W1RKW]

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.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

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 

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.

[W3GMS]

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 

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

[Steve - K4HX]

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.

[W4EWH]

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

[Pete, WA2CWA]

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.

[W1RC]

We have FiOS in our new QTH and it seems to be very good.  Internet download speed is supposed to be 50 Megabits. 

Is it "better" than twisted copper pair?  We'll see if this will be the case.

It's too early to tell but I am hopeful.

73,

MrMike

[W4EWH]

"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