Verizon Workers Can Now Be Fired If They Fix Copper Phone Lines (arstechnica.com) 314
Verizon has told its field technicians in Pennsylvania that they can be fired if they try to fix broken copper phone lines. Instead, employees must try to replace copper lines with a device that connects to Verizon Wireless's cell phone network, ArsTechnica reports. From the article:This directive came in a memo from Verizon to workers on September 20. "Failure to follow this directive may result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal," the memo said. It isn't clear whether this policy has been applied to Verizon workers outside of Pennsylvania. The memo and other documents were made public by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union, which asked the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to put a stop to the forced copper-to-wireless conversions. The wireless home phone service, VoiceLink, is not a proper replacement for copper phone lines because it doesn't work with security alarms, fax machines, medical devices such as pacemakers that require telephone monitoring, and other services, the union said.
Where to now? (Score:5, Interesting)
I left AT&T because they are fucking douche bags
I left Sprint because they were incompetent douche bags
I left T-Mobile because They were worse than AT&T...and they are douche bags
Now I'm with Verizon. Who do I go to next when they start pulling this type of shit on me?
Your cable TV provider? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Your cable TV provider? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your cable TV provider? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have, but I live on a dead end street and the outage involved a car and the pole that fed my street... I'll give them a pass on that.
As to this issue:
call in for "broken" Cu line (really just a yanked wire) and verify that the tech put on the wireless solution.
have your house robbed and the alarm fail because it's not a land line.
claim on your insurance and inform them why the alarm didn't work.
Let your insurance company act as a force multiplier in the ensuing sueball against Verizon.
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Me too, someone crashed into the box for the neighborhood. BUT, they put what was left of the box on some 2x4's and had it functional again in about 6 hours. I know everyone hates AT&T, but kudos to the line guys. It was a crappy day that day but they still got it going fast.
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I have, but it was 12 hours into a hurricane-induced power outage.
Regardless, the whole "gov't mandated safety-critical reliability" crap is the only reason, IMHO, to actually have a land line these days. If you don't get that bit, then why even bother in the first place?
Governments prefer faxed documents (Score:3)
Because, as the article states, fax transmission fails on cellular networks. My home state's means testing process for health insurance assistance requires applicants to mail or fax documents supporting my eligibility, including the applicant's birth certificate, most recent tax return, and the last 30 days of pay stubs. The instructions specifically state that a fax is more likely to be received by the deadline than mailed printed documents.
Re:Your cable TV provider? (Score:5, Interesting)
A voip line from a cable company isn't a land line. A land line is a hunk of copper that doesn't go dead when the power goes out. I am 40 years old, and I have NEVER had a landline outage.
My cable provider's modem has an optional battery so that e911 functionality is still available during power outages.
If I did replace my current copper connection I might just plug the modem into a UPS I have layout around.
FWIW I used to work in telecommunications and spent some time in phone company central offices. They battery room was impressive and scary.
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Because if you don't have power for an entire week, like after a hurricane, the battery is pretty much useless...
So is the phone company's.
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You know, like backup generators, contracted fuel deliveries, etc.
For their "switching" offices. Not for the neighborhood "hubs". Once it's battery runs down, my secondary, non-POTS, phone service is off line no matter how much back-up power I still have. The only time my primary, POTS, phone service went off line was when a tree branch fell and took down the line from the pole to my house. Otherwise, it has always worked - even during the "Big Blackout" of 2003.
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A vote for Dem validates the tactics of the DNC (Score:3, Informative)
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You really live up to your username ("dumb"), don't you! Do you think that any politician cares about people who don't vote? The people who don't vote are the sheep of the sheeple.
Instead, vote for a third party, or write in a name of a politician that you respect. It sends a message; perhaps a small message, but better than none.
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You really live up to your username ("dumb"), don't you!
Perhaps the person who confuses "RN" for "UM" is not qualified to make assessments as to who is dumb?
Do you think that any politician cares about people who don't vote?
Your confusion seems to extend from letters to concepts. I was speaking specifically about voters, not non-voters. Did "A vote for Hillary ... They only care if people vote Democrat" confuse you? Assess even more seriously your qualification to label people dumb.
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And voting for Republicans rewards the tactics of the Republicans. That's kind of the point. GOP also doesn't care how much you bitch and moan once they're in office. Its called politics. You win and then can stop thinking about it for 3 years.
As for your vote being power. Well it is. You have ~1/350million of a country's worth of power. Yippie. That you can use to choose between all of two options once every four years. If you happen to consider a specific issue to be of particular important, your
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The party won't reform....because post-Trump there won't BE an America to vote IN!!!
Later when you get to high school you will have to take a US Government class. When you take that class you will learn that our government is organized into three separate branches that can stalemate each other. That no one branch, and more importantly no one person - even the President, can get much done without the cooperation of the other branches.
I think the class will also mention that the military and law enforcement also swears their loyalty to the Constitution of the United States, not the tempor
Stein Anti-Vax (Score:4, Informative)
This again? Stein supports vaccination, but has a problem with the way business is conducted by the FDA.
http://www.snopes.com/is-green... [snopes.com]
For the nuke comments, sadly, I have to give you that one.
https://twitter.com/DrJillStei... [twitter.com]
Think I'm doing a write-in for my cat this term.
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Vote Cthulhu for President, why vote for the lesser of two evils?
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Vote Cthulhu for President, why vote for the lesser of two evils?
The problem is it is hard to tell which mainstream candidate is being inhabited by Cthulhu. :-)
Re:Where to now? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm considering rigging up a string and tin-cans contraption, myself.
It sort of reminds me of the South Park where Mr. Garrison invents the world's ultimate transportation device--it goes 300 MPH safely on the ground, allowing us to simply skip out on the humiliation of being groped in airport security lines. It does require the operator to insert a "safety wand" into their ass, and the countrols are manipulated using a phallic object via the tongue, but as all the people trying it out say "Well, it's a little uncomfortable at first, but still beats dealing with the airlines..."
Mobile phone carriers and telephone companies in general are arriving at that level of hatred--people would rather be literally dry ass-fucked uncomfortably for hours than deal with them.
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Mobile phone carriers and telephone companies in general are arriving at that level of hatred
I use T-Mobile family plan, and I am happy with their service. My phone "just works" for a simple flat monthly fee.
people would rather be literally dry ass-fucked uncomfortably for hours than deal with them.
No, the dry ass-fucking should be reserved for people that use "literally" as an intensifier. Some ground glass should be added for those that use it to mean "figuratively".
Re:Where to now? (Score:5, Interesting)
You have 3 choices? Wow!
For about 3 months we had three choices, but then Douche Inc merged with Bag Inc.
Re:Where to now? (Score:5, Funny)
Try moving to a country with a free market.
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The only time my country has had a single provider, was for the period when it was a government-owned monopoly.
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While I don't exactly like that I have to buy a specific phone, I have been pleased with the coverage area + cost. I used to have an area on my drive I called the "Verizon dead spot". After switching over, I haven't had issues with consistent dropping calls.
After you get past the phone expense, the price/month isn't bad: $20+data+taxes.
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Wait, wait, wait. You were trying to run from double bag companies and you went TO Verizon?
The only acceptable reason to be with verizon is the size of their network. In every single other way, they're inferior to all the other options.
Re:I'm having a really big antenna installed today (Score:5, Insightful)
The native New Hampshire people want you to fucking quit polluting their state with stupid.
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So you liberretardians are squatting, imposing yourself on the natives
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If there is no violence, actual threat, coercion, or fraud there should be no crime
If there is no crime, there should be no crime. Excellent tautology there.
Unfortunately history has shown repeatedly over and over that there's always someone out to benefit themselves by hurting others. You want to be rid of government _and_ shitty corporations. How do you expect that's going to work? Do you think the next Standard Oil just say to themselves "you know, we're too big and concentrating too much power lets break ourselves up let competition reduce our profit margins!" That's not a choice
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no, the large corporations with governments in their pockets are in fact run by scum
Making it official, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Although this seems to formalize a policy, the reality is that the various telephone companies have been cutting budgets for maintenance of copper phone lines, switching stations, and networks for many years. Ask anybody who has a business need for POTS lines about how hard it is to get any problems with them corrected--it's basically impossible. If you fight with them long enough and ward off enough attempts to be switched to a VoiP service to replace the broken lines, they'll trigger a "truck roll" and then tell you "it's all good" when it's clearly not "all good."
For example, every one of our remote sites we have a POTS line for the times when (not if, when) the main internet access is offline, taking the VPN to access that facility from HQ offline as well. I have a POTS line at each that I can dial-up to and remotely administer things. Guess how much fun it is to discover a noisy line with a modem? (Hint: Not fun.) Guess how even much more fun it is to discover you have a noisy line at a site in the middle of the only time of year you ever need to use that POTS line, during the Internet outage at that site? (Hint: Super-not-fun.)
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I can't remember the specifics but I believe there are laws forcing them to maintain the copper line
Without an SLA with teeth that's pretty much useless. I've been "supported" by an IT department that also had external, paying customers and if you're always last in line and they can't lose you as a customer and they only get a token internal billing no matter what it's going to stink. Just because you're paying for a service on behalf of the tax payers doesn't mean you can skimp on the professional contract and service management, like what exactly are the measurable deliveries and have they been delivere
Re: Making it official, but... (Score:2)
In many states these are called 'tariffs'.
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Re:Making it official, but... (Score:5, Informative)
This is just part of the pain of moving from analog to digital.
No, it's not. Copper lines carry digital data just fine. This is cheaping out on last-mile.
Of course (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently it's not enough to getfederal subsidies for copper telecom.
No, they want to destroy the infrastructure they're getting federal subsidies to maintain.
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Not entirely true (Score:5, Informative)
Technicians can fix the copper line “if the customer does not qualify” for wireless service. In those cases, the tech must document the reason the customer didn’t qualify for VoiceLink.
“It is a requirement that migration to VoiceLink be your first option when the customer qualifies and the trouble is in Verizon's network,” the memo says.
So it looks like if a tech is called to a site where all they have is voice over copper, and they're having issues with said VOC, then the techs are to simply test to see if the wireless service will work there, and if so, switch them to it. If not, then fix the copper line.
I'm not defending Verizon, but the headline here is misleading.
Re:Not entirely true (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not defending Verizon, but the headline here is misleading.
You must be new here.
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Which means that they can't get DSL or any of the copper-line services in the future....
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And they will be subject to node congestion, interference, power loss and a host of other problems that do not affect a POTS line.
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"And they will be subject to node congestion, interference, power loss and a host of other problems that do not affect a POTS line."
How many people REALLY have antique phones that require no external power any more? Most cellular gizmos I've seen come with a battery backup -- and unless you want to spend extra on a decent cordless phone (and most people dont), they don't come with one. So the "power loss" issue is at best a very edge case.
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The constant yelling and screaming over limited wireless bandwidth is the biggest concern with this policy, IMHO. It is one thing to say "Get with the times" but another entirely to say "We are going to artificially limit you from options you used to have".
Re:Not entirely true (Score:5, Interesting)
And if they fix the copper rather than switching to wireless wherever possible, they are subject to "disciplinary action". So yes, they can be fired for repairing the copper.
Looks like you didn't give Verizon their money's worth.
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This is troublesome. In Philadelphia, we have a major problem in many neighborhoods with metal theft. People rip open copper cables they can reach from the ground and steal them. I've had to have long calls with Verizon technicians in the past to get them to repair these when it happens. It's often been an issue they won't run the cable anywhere it wasn't run previously, so I can't get them to run it such that it is less likely to get stolen.
Now I see them surprising site managers with setting this stuf
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I'm not sure it *is* misleading, even given your elaboration. How many customers with know that VOIP means the line stops working if the power goes out? If they don't know, then they can't properly justify it.
What happens if the tech doesn't get the suggested percentage of upgrades?
I'm not sure the headline *is* misleading. I agree it might be, but there have been so many shady business practices recently that I am reluctant to give them the benefit of the doubt.
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Forcing customer to non regulated service (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Forcing customer to non regulated service (Score:4, Insightful)
Regulation risk is a good thing. If you can follow regulation for $50,000,000 or skip it for $2,000,000, you break a few rules. That's good. It's efficient, and prevents regulation from breaking everything.
Regulation risk is a good thing. If you keep flaunting regulations and breaking the rules because you can, the regulators can and should start raising criminal conspiracy charges, holding expensive investigations, and otherwise bringing actual threats to your business. That's good. It's efficient. It keeps businesses from fucking around too much, because the judiciaries and regulatory bodies will eventually express their complete lack of amusement if you keep doing this horse shit.
Regulation risk is a good thing. If our regulations can't keep businesses in line, we need to re-examine if our regulations are behind the current technology. Maybe it's time we lifted some restrictions; maybe we re-define some of the proscribed behaviors to exclude valid and beneficial behaviors; and maybe we didn't make ourselves clear the first time, and need to write more-stringent regulations to put these miscreants back in their pen. The situations change and the rules must adjust, either to allow what should no longer be contraband or to correct for a new method of achieving an unacceptable state without violating existing regulations.
Remember: Congress can and has investigated businesses in expensive ways for not following the rules. Disney made promises a few years ago about regulatory changes, and then did exactly what they said they wouldn't; Congress, having passed new rules allowing them to do what they did, cost Disney quite a lot of money having a Congressional Hearing to allow Disney to explain themselves. They've done it to Microsoft. They've done it to Exxon. Enron had executives walked out in chains, because if you keep doing shit like that, the cost of coming to wet yourself in front of Congress will be the least of your eventual worries.
By all means, try to cherry tap the boundaries a bit. Hopefully you learn quickly that fire is hot, or maybe you get someone's attention and they redraw the lines. Error correction is an important part of a stable system.
This is about power, control, and greed... (Score:4, Interesting)
Greed: Don't fix the copper wire infrastructure we get paid to maintain.
Control: If you're moved off of copper wire POTS, then in an emergency or power outage you cannot effectively call for help. Wireless systems get overrun with numbers of calls if the emergency is large enough (hurricane, tornado, flood, etc) and your call will not get through. Or you won't have power (wireless), whereas copper is designed to (almost) always have power and JUST WORK.
Power: See above. Put on your tin foil hat, but this is one step in a wave to disrupt and control communication when a "state of emergency" or "martial law" is declared. Just wait.
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In all likelyhood if things are so bad your wireless won't get through, the emergency service will be overwhelmed so your call is pointless.
Yes, but the call to your family outside the disaster area may not be, and it is not pointless to be able to call and let them know you are ok. or pointless to be able to call around town to locate family members who aren't at home to check on their safety.
Now, it is possible that the wireline CO is overloaded and your call won't go through. But with everyone switching to wireless because a wired phone is "useless", it is more likely that my wired call with get through and theirs won't. So thank you to the
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Won't stingray devices affect the service too if they happen to roll through your area?
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Maintainance.. yeah, copper is a pain in the ass. Better software reduces the costs, but doesn't eliminate them. That said, I'm not sure if the wire 'drop wire' from the access point to the household would constitute part of the protected network. There are many circumstances that would prevent service tech's from maintaining infrastructure on private property.
"one step in a wave to disrupt and control communication"
All telco services are centrally managed anyways, so there's 0 increase to centralized censo
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Correction: The devices have about 36 hours of battery power with reusable batteries that the household can replace (hypothetically), so E911 could 'probably' work, but they certainly have less reliability guarantee than traditional full-copper lines.
POTS is important (Score:2, Informative)
If it's not powered by the central office, then it's not telephone service, and the frauds at Verizon should be completely liable for all problems incurred by their false advertising.
Oh no! (Score:3, Informative)
The vast majority of customers could care less about copper or wireless or whether they are getting money to maintain copper. Presumably the wireless system has a battery ups like cable to maintain service during short outages. Does everyone here have parents that work in a copper mine or something?
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Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Informative)
One problem I can foresee is that although there is a process in place *now* for keeping the copper in place (it it can be justified), once the FIOS or wireless solution is in place, that premise will probably never be "qualified" to have a copper line hooked back up, so a future need for the copper line cannot be met. The other is that the Verizon "battery backup" is ridiculous - my FIOS backup battery lasts for 8 hours from the time that the power goes out (not 8 hours of call time) and it needs to be replaced every 1 to 2 years. When I had copper service, and we had a house power outage of a week or so in duration (happens roughly 1/year), I could still make phone calls. Now... tough luck. And this means that the E-911 system/service that I've been paying for years to build and maintain won't be there for me if my emergency happens when the power is out.
Dismantling the copper telephony infrastructure should be a public utility decision, not something the phone company does by subterfuge and one-on-one interactions with home owners who don't understand the ultimate ramifications.
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The reality is in most cases copper costs more and takes longer to upgrade services. Yes they get money to maintain, both from customers and the government. But I could really care less if they can offer something better with the money I'm spending today and in the future. For most peop
It ain't what it used to be (Score:3)
I'm an old guy, and for most of my life, POTS was iron-reliable. I picked up my phone, and it worked through rain, snow, sleet, hail, and even when the power was out.
Lately, my mom was having trouble with her landline. It started going out everytime it rained. I think it went out once when it just got humid! AT&T did "fix" it, but they must have just done a quick patch, because it started doing it again soon. They sent someone again, and did a better job of fixing it, but who knows when it will go out again.
The good thing is, it did encourage her to get a cellphone, which I'd been trying to nudge her to for awhile.
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Unfortunately, in a major disaster cellphones are nearly guaranteed to stop working for an indefinite period of time. Land lines have been a lot more durable.
How are the customers being billed (Score:2)
When I switch from POTS service to a VOIP service, My bill when from $50 a month down to $25 a month. And the VOIP service included things like unlimited long distance, voicemail, and a few other features that weren't included in my POTS service, because they would have made the bill even more expensive. Are Verizon dropping the rates for any customer affected by changing over to a VOIP system? Because if they are continuing to charge people as if they are using a POTS system, then the customers are truly
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Read the article. Its still POTS service, but it includes a wireless hop from the customer's phone drop to the poll servicing that drop wire.
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The main advantage of POTS lines is that they will work even if the power is out.
Your VoIP equipment has a battery in it to accomplish a similar thing, but it can wear down in an extended outage. Also... as with any digital service, it is relying on layers upon layers upon layers of technology working correctly whereas a POTS line is dead simple analog signals.
Simplicity and reliability go hand-in-hand...
And yet (Score:5, Interesting)
When asked about raising the data limits on wireless, they cry about how overloaded their wireless is.
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And voice has what to do with data again? This seems like fairly standard practice when there's a major break in copper infrastructure. Send a tech over to patch a wireless backhaul in while you fix the copper. I was on wireless PSTN for 3 weeks while our local utility had to dig up the street because they couldn't pull a new cable through the damaged conduit.
I knew at&t gave up on copper in my city. (Score:2)
Emergency calls over copper POTS (Score:2)
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The 'adapter' presents a POTS interface and typically has GPS built in, and presents a landline CLI. To all intents of purposes it's identical to a landline so far as the responders are concerned. This is a non-issue unless it's a real emergency, and the power is out.
N.B.: The copper lines also needed electricity, but they operated on batteries that the newer systems don't bother with, because it's cheaper not to, and nobody's making them care. There's really nothing inherently better about copper, though
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Hardline copper is more resistant to outside interference.
Hardline copper is not used as a broadcast medium, so you're not sharing bandwidth with everyone in the neighborhood.
I'd hardly say that there's nothing inherently better about copper.
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"This is a general discussion to formally notify" (Score:2)
Didn't V.92 solve the compatibility problem? (Score:2)
> because it doesn't work with security alarms, fax machines, medical devices such as pacemakers that require
> telephone monitoring, and other services, the union said.
I firmly believe that Verizon should be forced to either maintain its wireline network, sell it to someone who will at a fair price, or upgrade it to common-carrier fiber available for use by all on vendor-neutral terms.
That said... I swear I remember reading about a final extension to the v.92 standard for use primarily by FAX machines
Fiber everywhere (Score:2)
Re:Fiber everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
Because corporations are more sophisticated now. They realize they can take government subsidies for rolling out internet infrastructure and, when they don't actually deliver, there are no consequences.
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Money, basically.
Running cables means putting up poles, which is expensive. In urban and most suburban areas it also means digging trenches in the road, putting cable down and filling them in - which is horrifically expensive. That's why wired telecommunications is a natural monopoly. Rural electrification and universal telephone were only possible because the government run a subsidy program - they paid for the installation of cables out of tax money to cover those areas where it would otherwise not be eco
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Because someone has to pay for it and nobody likes paying for things anymore. Companies don't like investing when it negatively affects the next quarterly report, even if they'd see a return in 5 years. And homeowners aren't going to pay for a line that does exactly what their current line does (if they could even afford it in the first place.)
I mean none of that should be taken as absolutes -- obviously companies occasionally manage to think beyond 3 months and there's obviously some homeowners who get e
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who owns the lines? (Score:3)
I live deep in the woods in central Oregon. My phone line has ~35 repair tube things on it (big pringles-sized black cans) between the main pole and the 5 miles to my house. Falling trees break it almost every year. Verizon and AT&T provide land line access, and CenturyLink provides my 0.6MBps DSL (I know, ugh).
Who -owns- the line? And wouldn't switching to a cell access point fuck everyone's DSL? I know so little about phone lines....
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I'd be pretty upset if I called my vet to come see why my horse is sick and they simply shot my horse and gave me a bicycle.
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It seems like they also wouldn't work if ...the POWER GOES OUT
Most modern landline phones are powered with wall current. They don't work if the power goes out. Very few people still have POTS phones that draw power exclusively from the phone line.
Sure, landlines may be mostly useless these days, but they do have a few considerations left.
Old tech should be abandoned not when it has zero value, but when the value is less than the cost of keeping it around. It is time for landlines to die. It is also time for fax machines to die. Security alarms and pacemakers can use Internet, VOIP and/or a bridge to the cellular network.
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There's more than one use for that copper. Replacing it with cellular is not moving forward and usually a downgrade if you're remote. Replacing it with fiber would be reasonable.
Re:Other issues (Score:5, Informative)
Most modern landline phones are powered with wall current.
In the US, at least, POTS lines power the phone using DC current over the POTS (copper) line -- for normal phone usage -- no house power is needed for ring, dial tone and calls in/out. VoIP modems provide this power to the phones from either house current or their battery backup. Extra features the phone may have, like voice mail, are usually powered by house current and unavailable during a power outage.
Re:Other issues (Score:5, Insightful)
The cordless phones and phones like that need power from the outlet in order to work. That's why one should keep an extremely cheap, no-frills phone on hand in case there's an emergency so that there is something that will work with the landline if nothing else does.
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It seems like they also wouldn't work if ...the POWER GOES OUT
Most modern landline phones are powered with wall current. They don't work if the power goes out. Very few people still have POTS phones that draw power exclusively from the phone line.
In Cincinnati and the surrounding areas, one of the benefits of POTS is the phone company's independent power source that immediately kicks in at the time of loss of AC conversion. Essentially, weeks can go by with a loss of power (see: Hurricane remnants) and the phone lines are still functional. They have battery immediate, and generator (natural gas), followed by generator (gasoline). There has never been a phone failure unless the individual's line is cut/damaged/etc. It's the best form of backup comms sans ham radio.
Sure, landlines may be mostly useless these days, but they do have a few considerations left.
Old tech should be abandoned not when it has zero value, but when the value is less than the cost of keeping it around. It is time for landlines to die. It is also time for fax machines to die. Security alarms and pacemakers can use Internet, VOIP and/or a bridge to the cellular network.
Who determines zero value? There is limited bandwidth in the air for phone communications. We're not at it yet, but if Verizon keeps pulling this crap, eventually it will be reached. They will then go to the feds and FCC begging for more allocation. Nice way to "force one's self into near-monopoly".
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Bohpal, however...