sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information A prediction about the industry

I would also look at that graph. Talk about not following the curve or the data.

"Re: Grandma...as harsh as it sounds, in a few years, all the grandma's will have gone to the Big Central Office in the Sky."
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To be replaced by ................. hmmmm. That would be my wife, then my daughters, etc. Either that, or the human race dies out. Or euthanasia becomes legal! However, I see the point that the next generation of Grandma's will be cellular 'compliant'. But, we all know that there are large areas of the country that have NO cell service now and little chance of getting it. Subscriber numbers aren't there.

Wait a minute! Isn't there a parallel to this, acted out in the early 1900's. Bell grabbed the cities and left the independents to establish service to the small towns. My cell service is with Verizon Wireless because they have the best coverage in Northern Ohio where I'm most likely to be. We get customers with T-Mobile, Sprint, etc. that get No Service or spotty service on the Lake Erie islands, and even in Bowling Green heading Southwest to Fort Wayne, theres a huge void when you cross over to former Centennial areas. My Ft. Wayne customer with AT&T gets poor service on his way to Toledo in about the same area so it's a tower problem. Of course, he has crappy service in and around Ft. Wayne, so there's another company crossed off my possible list.

For internet, don't even go there. I live 9 miles from the C.O. and 4 miles from the RSS of the ILEC. After watching my connect rate in dial-up go from 54K to 22K to 14K from when I lived in town and first moved here after about a year dropping, dropping, along came Time Warner with cable modem for $35 a month. I think it was about 10 years ago and I haven't looked elsewhere since. It's funny to get those Frontier flyers in the mail about DSL...I'd never go to DSL even if they GAVE IT AWAY, I'd use my Aircard first.

My mother and step-father lived in an area more rural than I do. They never had internet or cell phone and didn't know how to use either.
My sister goes to the public library to use the internet. She's probably LH's age, but a computer isn't one of her top priorities. She has a cell from one of those crappy you gotta stand outdoors to use type of providers.

But, the point is as America starts moving where there was no telephone service, like the farmland that's becoming housing developments, and cell service becomes "cheaper" than land line service with mobility, you're going to have to see a drastic change in the pricing or subsidy to keep universal service intact. And BTW my cell bill is $160 for 2 phones, 1400 minutes, and a 3Gig aircard, and the phones are just basic without texting plans. Our land line bill was about $60 with taxes and fees until we went to $35 cable dial tone with free LD, and my business line is about $70 for a single line with CF arrangements. I would have converted it to TW Biz class if the web access for CF had been in place. At one time they offered 2 lines and 5 down internet for $70/month on a 3 year contract.

Maybe the answer is wireless mesh for the whole USA :-)

Carl

@ Coral

I love how it seems to be leveling out around 2012 and 2014 then plunges. I could see leveling out prediction...All that have migrated have. but then why the predicted plunge? Free Magic Jacks to everyone as part of a new plan implemented by the government?

Hmm? I just quoted another job to replace 12 hosted VoIP phones and all of their promise with a digital system and more POTS lines via a T1. Not true POTS but POTS to the end user. Two steps ahead and one back = the march of technology!

But in all respect, I am not that old, (48), and I *hate* cellphone service. It is crappy sounding, unavailable during half-time of the super bowl, when Airforce-1 is anywhere around, they (whoever 'they' are) turns off the service, it doesn't work in my basement, and frankly, it is not worth the money I pay for it.

I have a in-curable, flu virus caused heart condition. I require twentyfour seven phone access, not only to call 911 if I start having problems, but to also upload the data from my internal pacemaker to my cardiologist on a daily basis. I cannot depend on spotty cellphone service for this, and as I am outside of any cable service area, I cannot even use the digital phone service. My DSL goes from slow to slower when it rains, and thus I cannot even use something like MJ. So I say, let the POTS live.

Joe

Down in my part of the world coper and POTS is still king. As most broadband here is via ADSL and Pay TV via SAT only about two cities have cable reticulation to any extent. Even Telecom NZ much publicized Alcatel Next Gen Network (NGN) was supposed to be complete by 2004 and has been an abject failure so much so that they have kept allot of techs on to nurse the old NEC NEAX 61s on until 2020 by that time the next best thing will have come about..

What about all the elevator phones, burglar alarms, fire alarms, and fax machines that are on their own POTS lines? What's going to happen there-
In my college house, we had a triple play bundle from the cable company in Toledo. We almost never used the phone, about all it was good for was collecting messages for whoever had the number before us! Many people I know (my age and otherwise) do not bother with a phone line in their home or apartment, they just stick with a cellphone. To me, that is just asking for problems!

Did some driving around this morning in a new infill development about 10 minutes away from me and I was surprised to see all the homes that were occupied and had both the telephone and Shaw cable sitting unconnected. (cables just coiled up against the foundation and no nid boxes.)

It appears that the people living there were using just cells / smartphones for calls and internet access.

@BillFlippin

Yep. I also noticed that the US government isn't as sold on VOIP. You should see the backlog on digital sets for Tadiran for them. Impressive to say the least.