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The topic about retiring POTs lines rises up every so often.

The copper cables that support voice & DSL service are going nowhere. Verizon & at&t continue to cherry-pick the towns/cities where they deploy their upgraded services (FiOS & U-verse respectively) and in those areas, lots of "dark zones" exist.

Verizon & at&t will not lay fiber to every single address in their service areas. It's not going to happen.

So what are the LECs going to do? Provide a cell phone to every single household (including the elderly....like my aunt....who have never owned one) tell them "good luck" and then rip out the entire existing copper infrastructure?

I'm with you Paul. What are they going to do with the tens of thousands of square miles that have no wireless coverage? My guess is you'll start seeing a universal service charge where there hasn't been one before.

People who write these type articles usually live in their own little world.

I don't deny that VoIP & cellular service have decimated POTs. But the author never really answers the "what about great grandma?" concern other than to continue hammering on "make Internet and cellular service available to everyone". Not every grandma and great grandma has a computer or knows how to use a cell phone.

With all of the computer bugs, viruses & hackers out there just itching to cause havoc with computer networks, the TDM network remains a fairly safe haven.

Verizon has abandoned the build out of FIOS where in live in their former GTE territory in the Fredericksburg, VA area. Their former Bell Atlantic areas are lit with FIOS.

From what I've been told, they have made this decision based upon the fact that the GTE areas are more rural and less-likely to land sufficient subscriptions to the service (per square mile).

Although I live within the city limits, I am happen to be in the tiny corner that was annexed from Spotsylvania County decades ago. This meant that we landed into GTE territory and the existing utility boundaries. This caused a huge issue with 911 with the differing emergency agencies, but I'm hoping that they worked out by now. Thankfully, I haven't had the need to test it.

We do have DSL available through Verizon and HSI via Comcast Cable, but it is priced way above what Verizon's FIOS would be when the services are compared.

I love Comcast.

Someone please knock me in the head. I can't believe that I would say such a thing since I hate them, but they are our only option in my hood for a 'full-services' package.

I kind of like the idea of declaring the Internet as a public utility and putting it under the same protections, requirements, and subsidies that the PSTN gets. Anyone who has looked at the Net Neutrality stuff can't tell me that the free market is going to work out well for us. It will end up being like cell phone plans where they will charge for everything on top of hefty bandwidth fees.

If they do restructure, they damn sure need to make it easier to figure out. Every time I look at USAC and USF crap I just want to scream. They also need to make it more transparent where and what all that money is going for.

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.

so there will be no Grandmas in 2018 ???

Speaking from experience...

It's getting more and more difficult to locate a plain old dialtone in NYC basement feeders...and the copper plant is definitely in need of massive repair in all five boroughs.

However, in rural NEPA where I live, Verizon has no problem supplying anything that will work on a twisted pair, as long as you're paying for it. And the copper is downright pristine - I'm about 24K feet from CO and have a DSL...measly 3.0 over 0.768, but that's way better than anything I've ever seen in the city from a distance standpoint.

I agree with dexman's statement regarding FiOS and U-verse...they lay it down only where the money is, which is understandable, especially since these projects have been less profitable than expected from what I've heard...

As I've stated in another thread...I'm never giving up my copper dialtone or my ringdown circuit...

Ed-
We have the same problem in my county: northern half was Bell, southern (my) half was GTE. Even trying to work with them as an ILEC has created problems because you need to know if the service address was formerly Bell or GTE. Northern half getting services, southern half not so.

Before I moved four years ago, I could not get DSL even though I was less than 10,000 feet from THE CO!

As for universal cellular access: good luck! If I get north of I-80 in west/central PA to the NY border there are two areas (not large areas, either) where I can get cell service.

Bill

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.

Does this mean rotary phones won't be making a comeback?

All this begs the question, What's Uncle fed going to do to replace the 'revenue stream' (TAX) that is now flowing from the landlines? I don't see the bill on my wife's cell phone, because her thoughtful oldest daughter just 'added a line' to her bill. So what do the feds get from cell phones? And when is an internet connection going to be heavily taxed? Let's face it, the internet connection at your house or business is just as useful (valuable), if not more so, as your landline(s). At least for me. I've got the 'net' connection plus 1 MJ and 1 VOIP extension from Charlotte. And, of course, HDTV. All riding on my biz class from the cable company coming into my house.

They can already monitor it LH. I would suppose they will start usage charges. It's inevitable.