71–80 of 193 posts
Does ATT have an alternate asset? As far as I know they dont run a cable network or a significant fttp network so I dont see why they would remove any broadband customers. Dial up and landline only customers I can see being moved to LTE. 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…
National fiber network and land.
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…
Luckily phone companies cannot do this. Because AT&T was granted a monopoly, each state has Public Utility Commission that sets the rate the AT&T "Baby Bell" phone companies can charge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utilities_commission
- AT&T declares the rate it will charge in its [Red State] PSC tariff filing;
- [Red State] PSC stamps it.
But yes, it is certainly true that they cannot just charge capricious and whimsical rates that change daily at their pleasure, or anything like that.
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?
An optical cable is extremely small, in fact, most of the cable is just mechanical reinforcement.
Tens of thousands of copper fibers does not only means lots of cables with lots of devices that could fail, with lots of interference. It means that if something goes wrong, it it very hard to identify the problem or even to have the space to access the problematic cable.
It also means that what used to take a dedicated culvert now could be done with a single cable. So infrastructure prices go extremely low as you only need to bury a small pipe and you gain a lot of space in old infrastructure.
Copper actually rust if exposed to elements. For it not rusting you need to use things that actually degrade or pollute the environment a lot.
An optical line is as inert as it could be, does not degrade over time, does not have EM interference.
You already have all the necessary optical line infrastructure under roads or in powerlines. The only thing you have to update are the optoelectronics terminals and repeaters.
Certainly an opportunity for VOIP services and a router with a PSTN connection so you can plug in your existing phone will work out as a perfect solution. Such routers been around for ages, some even have DECT built in. One avenue that could be taken by the companies to mitigate any loss of voice service. Customer would be just changing the point they plug the phone in, socket wise and that would be that. I had a Dra…
TA96 rules mandate number portability. But you can't port a number outside of a rate centre. To put it simply, to port a number to a new carrier, the carrier has to be able to pick the call up somewhere, by way of the appropriate connections to the incumbent's "tandem" offices (think of it as a kind of hub for the spokes that are Bell central offices). The underlying PSTN origination supply chain for the VoIP industr…
Starting to see why they wanted the change now.
In Canada we stopped minting pennies because copper was too expensive.
Also those pex pipes they install in houses are probably popular because copper is expensive.
What's next, the return of aluminum wiring?
We had a week long blackout here a few years ago, my wall phone running off copper twisted pair was the only electrical thing working in the house.
I was glad, because I had better things to do than line up at starbucks to charge my cellphone like everyone else was doing.
Remember that ancient looking phone Adama was always shouting into on Batllestar Galactica? Maybe they were onto something.
That ship survived because it was the oldest ship in the fleet.
I'm in an apartment building in NYC. While a new service elevator was being installed, the elevator guys cut my phone line 3 times, and 3 times Verizon came out to fix it, at no cost to me. However after the third time, the building management refused to allow copper wire service to continue in the building. It turns out I was 1 of only 2 apartments which hadn't already moved to a cable/internet/phone package from on…
> the elevator guys cut my phone line 3 times I would be a little concerned about the safety of that elevator.
The point is that regulations previously required the telco provide an alternative service that works just as well as the existing copper before they are allowed to stop maintaining the copper. But that is no longer the case as of this vote.
Now when the telco doesn't want to pay to maintain the copper they can simply do nothing at all, which absolutely will leave people without any form of telecommunication in some areas.
Does ATT have an alternate asset? As far as I know they dont run a cable network or a significant fttp network so I dont see why they would remove any broadband customers. Dial up and landline only customers I can see being moved to LTE. 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…
https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR/financial-r...
They had as many people on Uverse video (which I guess is fiber) in 2014 as they had on copper phone lines in 2016.
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?
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…
Verizon and other telcos already learned they can get billions in subsidies for building fiber networks, and never follow through with it with no consequences.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131012/02124724852/decad...
At this point I think municipal run ISP utilities are the future we should be shooting for.
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?
You can put tens of thousands of copper lines communications in just a single optical cable. An optical cable is extremely small, in fact, most of the cable is just mechanical reinforcement. Tens of thousands of copper fibers does not only means lots of cables with lots of devices that could fail, with lots of interference. It means that if something goes wrong, it it very hard to identify the problem or even to have…
- While infrastructure does vary, "tens of thousands" of pairs hasn't been a common scenario in a long time thanks to multiplexing. Drag the pairs from each household back to a box with a few SLC96s, send it out the back on a few T1s running over a few pairs, or just one — framed over HDSL. Or multiplexed onto a DS1 signal that is in turn a channel on some much larger TDM aggregate over fibre, like an OC-3 or 12.
- EM interference is still occasionally an issue with copper, but only on the lastest of the last mile. Otherwise, overall local loop transmission has been digital for a long time.
Nothing goes back to the central office as an analog signal, at least not in environments that the telecom industry considers "metro" (90% of the country).
There is some truth to what you say, but there's a lot of 80s-type telephone folklore mixed in as well. :-)