AT&T: landline phone service must die; only question is when | Hacker News Reader

AT&T: landline phone service must die; only question is when

arstechnica.com

25 pointstshtf33 comments

So does this mean AT&T will provide better cell coverage? As someone who builds data transfer tools for handheld products, there are people who cannot use GSM/GPRS solutions because they don't have coverage at their homes. Accommodating POTS modems is painful at times, but it means a larger majority of our users can actually transfer data when necessary.

That's very much my thought. Even though I live in an urban area, I get sketchy cell coverage in most of my house. If I want to have a reliable conversation on my cell phone, I can't leave my living room.

Moreover, I appreciate having the competition in internet access methods. Since I don't have a TV, it's cheaper for me to have DSL than a cable modem. If DSL service goes away, I would have no choice.

Maybe landlines will truly be obsolete at some point, but we're not there yet.

Not only is cell coverage incomplete, but DSL reach is very limited compared to POTS http://www.dslreports.com/faq/4676 (I cannot get DSL and I'm only three miles from my CO - apparently they don't support longer distance versions of DSL). There are vast swaths of the US that are not served by cable. The remaining option would be satellite, which is expensive.

Realistically wireless coverage inside your house will be spotty for a long time to come. And you will may never get service in your basement.

I'm looking for femtocells to provide service in these situations.

UMA is what could solve this--you can switch calls between the GSM tower and over the internet through WiFi. Call passing is tricky, but the tech is here and it works. If you have WiFi at home and the office, it's game changing.

T-Mobile is the only US carrier pushing it, mostly because they are the scrappy smaller player.

I don't think we can rely on mobile services for emergency uses yet.

I'd much rather depend on a copper wire to a central office with a multi-day battery backup system than on both a flakey cell phone and a flakey cell tower that will both quickly lose power.

While your cell phone battery might be weak, why do you think that your wireless network doesn't have battery backups on all critical infrastructure? Uptime is just as big of a deal for wireless networks as it is for wired networks.

But what's the use of a robust cell tower infrastructure if my cell batteries run out?

Only if I think ahead and have alternative charging methods for my cell phone (e.g., car charging, assuming my gas supply doesn't run out) does this make any sense.

We have hurricanes where I live and mobile is much better able to cope--phone lines get blown down. The carriers have done a good job with securing towers and providing onsite power. They even bring in extra capacity in critical areas on trucks: http://www.corp.att.com/ndr/images/2007Q4_1022_259_tch_satco...

It's not so much reliability as spotty coverage. I can make calls only from my living room and not at all from many areas of town. There have been proposals for a new tower to give better coverage, but they have been shot down by all the NIMBYs. The firefighters dont want cancer. The greens dont want a fake tree in the large nature preserve (next to the giant water tanks). I will probably switch to VOIP of some sort.

What does this do to DSL? My local provider told me they could provide a dry line so I could have DSL without dialtone, but I've heard a lot of local telcos can't do this.

In any case, AT&T needs to improve their service before this happens. I live out in the country and I can drop a cell signal (AT&T is my provider!) by simply walking across my living room. Cellular service is spotty at best in many locations on my small property.

DSL is being replaced by FTTP--all the major phone companies are switching to fiber. Verizon has FiOS, AT&T has U-Verse and Qwest has what they are calling "fiber optic" DSL but which isn't really DSL.

It will take a while, but fiber is the future.

I've been hearing that for over 10 years now. Wake me up when it's actually in my neighborhood :-)

Fiber is most definitely not the immediate future, I live in a semi-rural part of my state and dsl is available (though it is relatively slow and costs close to 50 dollars). I would be lucky to get 2Mbit internet in the next 10 years.

Laying fiber is expensive, fixing and branching old phone lines... not so much.

Last I checked, it was profitable to replace mid sized bundles of copper wire with fiber and sell the copper. I don't think it works with a single strand, but it's less expensive to roll out above ground fiber than you might think.

Most of the people around here have underground power and phone lines with the land that their homes are on being from 4 to 20 acres.

Yes, digging up the ground is expensive but I was responding to: I live in a semi-rural part of my state and that's less expensive than you might think.

PS: I live in a 22 story high rise and we don't have FIOS because the building management made some deal with comcast, but that's a side issue.

That future is a long way off. Comcast has been basically blocking this future by convincing large apartment complexes to sign exclusivity contracts for cable that prevent competition, and since FTTP is a "triple-play", they get locked out.

Fiber will be the future if we could get rid of suburban sprawl, and get rid of lobbyists.

Have you tried a femtocell?

I'm not comfortable with this. If something's going to die, than let it die, but don't get the government involved, legislating it's death.

AT&T has every right, I suppose, to attempt to maximize their profit by trying to get the FCC to use the power of government to change the playing field. I would hope the FCC isn't foolish enough to agree to it, however.

Unfortunately, government likes power. The FCC, having recently orchestrated the death of analog television, is probably feeling a bit cocky, that they have the duty to kill all the old technologies. The two cases are different though.

Analog television was not something that people's lives depended upon. It also was very obviously taking up bandwidth that was in finite supply. These things are not true for POTS. It's time will certainly come, but we're trying to move too quickly, for no reason, on the very flimsy premise that "more people could get broadband faster",

Mobile costs are still too high for landlines to disappear (either as per call costs or as monthly fees).

I think it's mainly because of competition issues (oligopoly) but I don't know the market that well. The second we are able to turn mobile lines into REAL dumb pipes, you'll see the end of most landlines.

You have it backwards. The government is preventing POTS from dying.

AT&T wants the government to relax the rules so POTS can die or not die based on market forces.

Hmm, you may be right, which puts me in a quandary, since I still want POTS to survive, and I generally dislike government intervention.

The cynic in me says AT&T wants to do DSL/fiber to the high density, high value markets and get out from under the requirement to also provide POTS to the low density, low profitability rural markets, currently subsidized by the high value markets.

See: http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/tapd/universal_service/

* Advance the availability of such services to all consumers, including those in low income, rural, insular, and high cost areas at rates that are reasonably comparable to those charged in urban areas

So, if AT&T drops POTS, what are they going to do to cover rural areas that cannot be covered by copper based DSL and are unlikely to be covered by fiber due to cost?

It's a little more subtle than that.

AT&T can get out of the POTS biz tomorrow by selling it and the pieces that are regulated with it. In fact, AT&T was out of the POTS biz in most of the country and bought its way back in.

They could, for example, do cell phone, long distance, and cable TV without being in the POTS biz.

However, they can't provide DSL capacity without being in the POTS biz.

What they want is a monopoly for certain forms of access without having to provide POTS. (I'm not sure exactly what.)

If we buy their "universal service" argument, the solution is actually to use cell phone revenues to bolster POTS service. There's precedent - they took their POTS revenues to build/buy their cell phone service.

The FCC regulates almost all aspects of local exchange carriers. The entire business is so mired in regulation that it would be legally impossible to let it naturally die. Really, the FCC's main responsibility isn't to legislate its death, but to un-legislate the necessity of its existence.

If the US is anything like the UK, then there is probably a Universal Service Obligation in place that legally requires telcos to provide phone services within their service area whether or not it's profitable to do so.

Interesting how AT&T is saying we need to kill landlines... mayhaps they have a side-goal of getting more people onto their (expensive, like all other options) cell networks?

I have no landline, but until we get nearly 100% cell coverage (far from it, currently), better networks, and better prices, no killing landlines. Oh, and significantly better upload rates on DSL, as VoIP will eat it up.

"AT&T says it's time for POTS to die, and it wants the Federal Communications Commission to schedule its funeral."

And then what will I do with my fax and answering machines?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5orss3fAEU

I am surprised that a company would like to phase out a product which is still giving it some revenue. I am no expert but even after cutting the maintenance cost and other invisible overheads, Ma Bell's networks are still giving profit to AT&T.

VOIP margines must be high enough that urging such a move is even more profitable. It's likely, as mentioned in the article, the AT&T will push for legislative changes to improve their market position and control.

what the FCC should do is tell them...ok you no longer have to maintain the lines.

But you can't remove them either, let the cables atrophy and die, but until they do, let the people have free phone service.

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