AT&T Readying For the End of Analog Landlines 426
nottheusualsuspect writes "AT&T, in response to a Notice of Inquiry released by the FCC to explore how to transition to a purely IP-based communications network, has declared that it's time to cut the cord. AT&T told the FCC that the death of landlines is a matter of when, not if, and asked that a firm deadline be set for pulling the plug. In the article, broadband internet and cellular access are considered to be available to everyone, though many Americans are still without decent internet access."
No Landlines? Hah. (Score:5, Informative)
There still is nothing as reliable as a plain regular analog telephone line, as engineered by the fine people who used to work at AT&T.
Even though I love my blackberry, I'm going to keep my POTS line for a very long time. My POTS line has worked flawlessly from the day it was installed for over 10 years.
I love this line from the article: "It makes no sense to require service providers to operate and maintain two distinct networks when technology and consumer preferences have made one of them increasingly obsolete."
Lies. The analog portion of the phone system is only in the last mile. The backend of the phone system has been digital for a very long time, and it is ALREADY common to see IP-based backhaul with QOS.
Analog lines aren't just for phones ya know... (Score:4, Informative)
Will VoiP phones be powered over ethernet? (Score:2, Informative)
Or (as I believe would be the case), the phone is powered from house wiring meaning, if your power goes out, you've lost your phone service. If the central office provides the power for the local loop (as is currently done), they have batteries fail over to when their power goes out. Several years ago, my power went out for 3 days. Using an old dial phone which didn't require external power, I still had phone service.
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
Trouble is, a lot of areas that lack broadband also lack any sort of wireless telephone coverage as well. Until last year, my mother was in such an area. Now she gets DSL (because the local library got it, and since they had to put a DSL demarc in for the library they went ahead and made DSL available for anyone on that station), but cell service is still very spotty there.
She's one of the luckier ones in her area, though, since she lives near the library and on top of a hill. That means she gets DSL and can get some cell signal, and if you stand in just the right part of the house and hold still you can even hold a conversation on cell. Usually.
Most of her neighbors have only POTS, and the telco put filters on their phone lines that limit dialup to 14.4K because there isn't enough capacity on the lines for everyone to get 28.8K or 56K dialup.
She's also one of the lucky ones on the DTV conversion. She only lost 1 of the 4 channels she used to get before the conversion (refer to the "top of the hill" note above). Many in her area lost TV altogether, and are stuck buying satellite (which cannot offer the local stations due to blackout regulations anyway). That's a lot of dough to watch the 6 o'clock news every night, especially when it isn't the local news.
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, a very large number of us. Since the entity now called AT&T acquired Pacific Bell, extension of broadband to rural areas has ground to a halt, their public relations comments notwithstanding.
There's no cell service at my location, no terrestrial IP provider, leaving me with satellite. Given the high latency and bandwidth caps it's not a real substitute. I'd cheerfully abandon POTS, but we're screwed if we do. VOIP over satellite doesn't work. Comcast came through the neighborhood a couple of years ago, putting brackets on the line poles, but abandoned the project as soon as AT&T quit talking about expanding DSL.
I'm hardly in the back of beyond...just a few miles from Grass Valley in California, and my situation is not unusual.
So yes, the answer is that real, usable IP is out of reach for many of us.
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
Yes - I'm sure they will be able to use a cell phone when the power is out.
The rest of your question is based on a situation that will have ceased to exist [fcc.gov] by the time I drop VOIP.
Though I find the likelihood of intruders holding my kids hostage to be extremely unlikely. I plan for a wide range of contingencies, but if someone has overcome everything else, I don't think the lack of a land line will be a major factor in any outcome.
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, my internet and VOIP and cell all work when the power goes out.
I haven't had a POTS line in over four years now.
Granted, I took measures to ensure I would have working internet and VOIP when the power went out, but it's not THAT hard to figure out what you need to keep your lines of communication open in the event one loses power.
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:4, Informative)
Any system will stop working when the battery dies. The point of saying POTS lasting through outages is because Telcos have to adhere (or should) to strict standards regarding availability of service and they maintain their centralized battery backup much better than a consumer does (or can).
I don't have any experience with VOIP, so I don't know how long their batteries last. However, given that people tend to use their smart phones for everything (GPS, video, audio, etc.) how much of a battery buffer is left at the end of the day to last a 24 hour outage (since power outages are generally unplanned). I know the smart phones I've used can handle a couple hours of GPS, video, audio, etc. and there usually isn't much battery left for voice or standby.
All I'm saying is that while centralization provides a single point of failure, it also provides a single point of maintenance and allows much larger battery backup than would otherwise be possible. Not to mention that it is much easier to restore power to every CO in the city to restore phone service than it is to restore power to the entire city (much like how blocks on the same grid as a fire station are usually the first to have power restored).
Re:Majority (Score:4, Informative)
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
Your POTS phone will stop working if your local switching station is digital and the power goes out there for a longer period of time than their backup power lasts.
Analog switches don't run on gas or gerbils; they needed power as well. Furthermore, I don't think there's an analog switch in operation in the US today, or least not any town with more than ten houses.
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:2, Informative)
For VOIP, they make these things called UPSes. A standard "10 minute" computer UPS can keep a cable (or DSL) modem, home router, and VOIP appliance running for hours.
Point being is there are no regulations that mandate cable providers (as ISP's or not) provide any level of protection against power outages. On the other hand, land-line providers are required to maintain battery AND generator backup. Cell towers are also exempt. Most have battery systems that will last for up to 60 minutes (most will not last that long due to battery age) and almost none have permanent generators.
Your only safe bet is POTS in a large scale power outage.
Municiple Utilities are dependent on the analog (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Majority (Score:3, Informative)
I still get 4 analog channels and just one digital channel. I use a rabbit ears antenna mounted on top of my old mid-1990s 13-inch television, without a converter box. Cable is not available where I live. For several years, I kept hearing that analog TV would not exist beyond a certain date, but here it is almost 2010, and I am still watching analog TV. Oddly enough I think the translator station is probably having to convert a digital signal to analog to accomplish that.
Since I do not have cable, I use DSL over POTS lines from the telephone company for my Internet connection. Where I live the available speed is 1.5 Mb / 800 k for DSL, with hints that QWEST may possibly eventually upgrade to local equipment to 7 Mb capability someday.
Up until about 3 years ago 26.4k dial-up was all that I could get, even when using a 56k modem. The local telephone lines were not good enough for 28.8k or 56k.
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
//Any system will stop working when the battery dies. The point of saying POTS lasting through outages is because Telcos have to adhere (or should) to strict standards regarding availability of service and they maintain their centralized battery backup much better than a consumer does (or can).//
Former telco employee here. Battery backups are generally insufficient for that purpose.
They have batteries that last long enough to ensure the backup generators can be brought online. Usually the generators kick automatically in the event of a power loss, but there is a long enough delay that the service would blink if it couldn't transition through battery backup first, and, hey, sometimes they DON'T kick automatically. Other than this, batteries have little to do with the service availability---it's mostly due to diesel. AFAIK, COs have redundant generators; although this may be restricted to certain COs, they were present everywhere I looked.
I'd like to add...
Previous poster is essentially right about the government regulation too---there is not a financial incentive to provide service this reliable based on consumer pricing alone. If a CO goes down and people lose service, there are very substantial penalties unless it's an absolutely unavoidable "act of God" situation. The government often makes stupid rules, but the telephone regulations are good stuff and I'd really like to extend them to VoIP/wireless. (Yeah, right, in my dreams, hey?)
Great idea! (Score:3, Informative)
Ah yes, another stellar example of the best government money can buy. Did it not suffice that the telecoms have kept the US in the technological telecommunications toilet compared to the rest of the developed world? Now they've destroyed OTA TV and are planing to destroy POTS and DSL. Yet whenever we try to fight the corporate destruction of our country, our efforts get thwarted by the simple ploy of crying "socialism!".
Bell Canada (Score:1, Informative)
Bell Canada has been completely VOIP since 2006, in fact, they partially funded one of the big VOIP providers to develop it, so in case of failure, they wouldn't have egg on their face if they developed the process 1st and it failed.
Re:Majority (Score:4, Informative)
It's because the average Slashdotter seems to think that "Voice Over Internet Protocol" means "phone calls over broadband Internet."
VoIP doesn't really require broadband and doesn't have to travel over the Internet. Most of my POTS calls are in fact VoIP calls as soon as they hit the local substation.
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:VOIP sucks. (Score:1, Informative)