51–60 of 193 posts
The article brings up DSL, but I thought DSL was a short haul technology (you have to be pretty close to a branch office or something)? Would it really affect rural customers anyway? I'm also curious if the newer faster fiber technologies are sort of "subsidizing" the carrier's copper business.
I dont see anything about the USF going away so I dont see why anyone would be left behind, USF's are normally highly profitable for the telco. For the edge cases that cant receive a mobile signal with a roof mounted antenna, I guess a subsidized satellite phone will be the solution.
AT&T has basically been bullying customers out of their POTS lines for the last few years. Instead of paying, saying $34.95 for a line they'll increase it to $89 or $135 per line . Then they'll sell you a 'bundle' with a cellular phone or tablet with data plan at a lower price than your old rate for just the old analog line alone. Not sure how the math works out. Since the contract is up after a year, then you have s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you hear telco execs talk about “the copper plant,” they are referring to all of the underground copper. This wire is laid out in sheathed bundles of excess pairs that can be used to replace a pair that has a short. When they eventually run out of pairs, the only solution is to dig trenches and replace bundles. It is filthy, expensive work for a feature that no longer generates the revenue that funded the deploy…
> If we hadn’t wasted the trillions of dollars on the last 16 years of war War is actually one of the cheaper parts of the budget.
> allows the telcos to eliminate old copper wholesale services like resale.
is to cut CLECs out of the circuit game, to the extent they still sell T-circuits and (more likely) Ethernet transport over telco copper through the UNE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_network_element) facility).
Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TA96), UNE rules have required incumbents to lease portions of their physical plant to CLECs at regulated rates. These do not apply to fiber. Making it impossible for CLECs to ride portions of their network to compete with them has been a major goal of pulling out copper, and has often led to it being pulled out more aggressively than it otherwise would be.
Its silly to think that copper itself is going away simply because the phone system won't be using much of it anymore, almost all electricity from AC to DC wires run over copper and various alloys.
Pardon the possibly ignorant question, but what do the telecom companies have to gain by destroying their own infrastructure? I feel like I'm missing something about the US telecom market here. Aren't these companies making a profit on this infrastructure? Are they selling more profitable services and they want users to switch over? Are the maintenance fees that high?
In the U.S. rural telecoms access has always existed because of government mandates supported in part by government subsidies and taxes. It would definitely be more profitable to drop support for large parts (land mass, not population) of the U.S. entirely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you hear telco execs talk about “the copper plant,” they are referring to all of the underground copper. This wire is laid out in sheathed bundles of excess pairs that can be used to replace a pair that has a short. When they eventually run out of pairs, the only solution is to dig trenches and replace bundles. It is filthy, expensive work for a feature that no longer generates the revenue that funded the deploy…
> If we hadn’t wasted the trillions of dollars on the last 16 years of war War is actually one of the cheaper parts of the budget.
While the Australian right wing govt scrapped all the fibre to the home work that was underway and decided that copper from the node to the house was a great upgrade. The internet in Australia is so bad I had significantly better in New Zealand a decade ago.