It hasn't been a priority in a long time.
AT&T looking to end copper landline phone service in California
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For sure. But the point here is that COLR is a contract, and when someone wants to unilaterally cancel a contract that is now costing them a lot of money, there is an opportunity to demand concessions from them. AT&T will spin this as the government unreasonably wants to keep copper lines up forever, but that's not actually the point. The company should take some of the billions they profited over the years to improve fiber and/or cell systems.
After a few decades of experience, it is obvious that the "free market" multi-ogiopoly system is is never going to build universally usable cell coverage into rural areas by itself.
Here’s what it’s like to work inside NYC’s windowless, mystery ‘spy hub’
At 33 Thomas Street in Lower Manhattan, it’s always spooky season.
nypost.com
shows a pic of a POTS battery backup system at the central office.
When I worked in TV we had a 230' tower out back. It was originally for our studio-to-transmitter microwave link but we changed that to a fiber line. Anyway we were near an airport and the only tower allowed, so it was stacked with cellular antennae.
Verizon wireless had a prefab concrete bunker the size of a 1/2 length mobile home, for their UPS/ generator equipment.
Sprint had a haggard looking guy in a 1/2 ton truck, with landscape trailer and 5 gallon gas cans. He came by to fuel up some jobsite generator that connected to his system via twist-lock connecter during the aftermath of some storm or another that left us without power.
Both systems were working fine, for the home user. One had more "nines" of reliablity than the other, I expect. BTW, their ad campaign didn't brag about low prices or customer service: "It's the network."
similar thing happened in MA where Verizon refused to fix any existing DSL internet (requires copper) if it failed to a home. The town where brother in law lived barely had cell reception (still similar) where that could be used. Old foggies in town were against cable TV so they gave up.
A group of western MA towns created its own utility to lay fiber with $2000/home hookup with a base amount commited.
My brother in law enlisted a real estate agent to show how property value was influenced especially for old foggies in town to cough up $2000.
A group of western MA towns created its own utility to lay fiber with $2000/home hookup with a base amount commited.
My brother in law enlisted a real estate agent to show how property value was influenced especially for old foggies in town to cough up $2000.
Have the same trouble north of Harrisburg where I live. No spare facilities, copper going bad, bridge taps where bad, so after a few years of complaints VZ put in fiber to the houses. Since our township has cable contract through Xfinity, VZ can not offer tv to us, only landlines.
So I still have my 2 VZ landlines along with a Xfinity line through cable and of course my cell svc, but cell is very spotty where I live so we use the landlines most of the time at home unless I want to stand outside at the bottom of the driveway to use cell svc.
So I still have my 2 VZ landlines along with a Xfinity line through cable and of course my cell svc, but cell is very spotty where I live so we use the landlines most of the time at home unless I want to stand outside at the bottom of the driveway to use cell svc.
I had this problem at my old job with T1 circuits, they also run over copper. I was the network manager there. I had 500 of them deployed throughout the state, running AT&T MPLS. Well AT&T came knocking and said they're looking to get out of the copper business. This was 2ish years ago. They didn't put a deadline on it but let it known they were looking to get out of the business. They were willing to run fiber anywhere I wanted it....as long as we paid the construction costs. And we're talking $100K a mile, for some SUPER out of the way places out in West Texas and the Panhandle. Would have cost dozens of millions, if not more. Non-starter with the business. Glad I don't have that particular problem anymore.
I think AT&T is going to have to get off their horse eventually and run more fiber, and work with whatever we're calling this century's version of the LEC, to maintain and implement rural fiber circuits.
I think AT&T is going to have to get off their horse eventually and run more fiber, and work with whatever we're calling this century's version of the LEC, to maintain and implement rural fiber circuits.
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wow I had to check as I was thinking maybe this is a 13 year old thread.
I am a phone guy. Haven't even worked with copper in maybe 11 years, and haven't worked on phones in 9. I am surprised that a place as progressive and that has a cost of living as low as CA, they'd still be using copper. It's not the actual "copper," it's the massive infrastructure required to maintain it. Phones used to have an uptime of 99.999%. That's down barely over 5 minutes a year. The density is 1:1.
I'm going back 25 years. It was always said the average employee spends 6 minutes an hour on the phone, yet they require a dedicated port to their desk. It's like having one enterprise server per app. Imagine all the heat and electricity.
We had a job in Ohio, where all these companies in a guard shack relied upon satellite dishes (their security cams, computers, etc.). 384k up. Why? Because it would cost $18,000 in construction costs to lay the single mode fiber 3 miles. All they needed was the theft of the contents one trailer and that fiber paid for itself.
The American solution would be like the USPS. They have no choice and have to service everyone. Those other two don't. The latter is the way we do things today. Health care, insurance, why not phone lines.
I am a phone guy. Haven't even worked with copper in maybe 11 years, and haven't worked on phones in 9. I am surprised that a place as progressive and that has a cost of living as low as CA, they'd still be using copper. It's not the actual "copper," it's the massive infrastructure required to maintain it. Phones used to have an uptime of 99.999%. That's down barely over 5 minutes a year. The density is 1:1.
I'm going back 25 years. It was always said the average employee spends 6 minutes an hour on the phone, yet they require a dedicated port to their desk. It's like having one enterprise server per app. Imagine all the heat and electricity.
We had a job in Ohio, where all these companies in a guard shack relied upon satellite dishes (their security cams, computers, etc.). 384k up. Why? Because it would cost $18,000 in construction costs to lay the single mode fiber 3 miles. All they needed was the theft of the contents one trailer and that fiber paid for itself.
The American solution would be like the USPS. They have no choice and have to service everyone. Those other two don't. The latter is the way we do things today. Health care, insurance, why not phone lines.
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We don't have time to get into the details here, but you are correct. Hasn't anyone ever driven past a CO aka central office? I'm not talking about in a city as it would either be massive, or blend in (think of a Sungard disaster recovery facility you don't see anything from the outside).
The below is not mysterous to me. 66, 110, Krone, etc. I told my bro our age difference makes 2 things necessary. You could not have toured with the Grateful Dead, and you could not have been a phone man. It's impossible by year of birth alone.
About your "they have to run a dedicated port to their desk". I am starting to see people using only wifi at work because of not just the cost to run wires and ports but for security reason. All ports have to be checked against the MAC address of the registered equipment and if you plug your machine to the wrong port you are locked kind of thing.
So people just decided to use wifi, and to be honest with today's 5GHz and 6e things are pretty smooth. Most workplace don't use that much bandwidth even with Team / WebEx / Zoom video conference.
People always think these ideas are good until they come back to bite them.
During power outages, cellular networks become overloaded.
Fiber runs also aren’t as reliable as one would expect. I experience fiber outages daily at work. Some interrupt remedial action schemes (load shedding) others interrupt voip lines to control centers & the copper backup line is all that remains.
I only read through pg1 prior to posting so apologies if everything here has been covered already.
During power outages, cellular networks become overloaded.
Fiber runs also aren’t as reliable as one would expect. I experience fiber outages daily at work. Some interrupt remedial action schemes (load shedding) others interrupt voip lines to control centers & the copper backup line is all that remains.
I only read through pg1 prior to posting so apologies if everything here has been covered already.
I even remember in the (before consumer internet) 80s hearing about fiber being used in newer neighborhoods to do the heavy lifting where one fiber connection could multiplex thousands of different voice lines.
So obviously there were existing neighborhoods that kept their copper lines going to from the switching offices to neighborhoods. But even when people had standard copper phone service at the home in newer neighborhoods (or where the phone companies had installed fiber) they were getting a fiber connection with a short copper line nearby to the home.
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It has totally changed--my job was completely eliminated, but a neat trick was you're going to learn something new if you want, and keep your salary.
To your point, when I was green in 2015, I would ask, I have a 5,000 sq ft office (small). How many wireless APs do I need.
At first, in my mind, like a child or newbie, just give me the number, not the explanation. How many APs per sq ft?
A cool old timer said ah, young grasshopper, there is no answer to your question. If you want to know everything I do, I'll explain in detail....
getting to your observation....say you host a meeting in your office, in a large conference room. What happens once the people break? Every single person is on their smartphone. More APs are needed for bandwidth, not coverage. Why can't we ever get internet in a rock concert or football or baseball stadium, with a fast upload speed? Bandwidth, not coverage.
Here's an example of contrast: Compare the wireless APs in a 1.5 mil. sq ft warehouse, to a 20 story building in a city. Two completely different applications, but overall the warehouse needs less access points, from a density standpoint. It'll be doing 2.4 ghz while the office cannot and must use 5 ghz...
Used to be one CAT 3 and one CAT 5e went to a desk, for phone, and computer. If the person were in IT? Sometimes 2 CAT3 (one for a modem) and 2 CAT 5.
Today? Almost always, just one. Now imagine the infrastructure that's not there nor needed on the backend....
hahahaha btw my job changed again, I don't work in networking and wireless anymore either lol
It can be done. I remember using the Wi-Fi at Chase Center in San Francisco which was just crazy fast. They must have a massive number of access points and tons of bandwidth to support it.
Chase Center - High Density Wi-Fi Network M S Benbow And Associates
MSB led the design and implementation of Chase Centers revolutionary High Density Wi-Fi technology, providing seamless connectivity to fans.
msbenbow.com
The only way DSL could have gotten faster over the years was by removing the last copper mile distance, used to be from office to home and later to the "lawn fridge", and finally would be fiber to the exterior wall of your house. When you are finally there you might as well just sell them fiber internet and convert that inside the house to a VOIP copper line. My parents did that, still has a voice line from Sonic, and that becomes fiber next to the fiber router all within 10 feet from the "landline". Everything inside the phone company has been fiber for a couple decades now, doing virtual circuit instead of packet switching. Obviously they still have the battery backup but it has all be digitized. So when people say "landline sounds better than digital voice call" it is not because of analog, because everything is digital before you get to the phone company.
Landline also becomes overloaded (you will hear a different ringtone) in disaster.
At my current work we use fiber to connect between a -60C RF chamber to room temp, no other metal wire can transfer the signal out reliably. If you have problem with fiber it is because your equipment is not good, not because fiber is not as good as copper (copper get RF interference from all the signals and power line noise, fiber doesn't).
As I mentioned above, everything from your home to the lawn fridge is copper, then afterward it becomes fiber and digital before it goes into the phone office.
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Agreed...of course then we get into co-channel interference....It can be done. I remember using the Wi-Fi at Chase Center in San Francisco which was just crazy fast. They must have a massive number of access points and tons of bandwidth to support it.
Chase Center - High Density Wi-Fi Network M S Benbow And Associates
MSB led the design and implementation of Chase Centers revolutionary High Density Wi-Fi technology, providing seamless connectivity to fans.
What was a lesson to me 8 years ago....had a project in Glastonbury, CT. Not a class A but almost, office. Going into the go-live of a new location with 1) No primary circuit 2) No backup circuit
We take it for granted these days, like connectivity somehow grows like weeds.
I really schmoozed i.e. sweet talked a lady at COX Business (out of RI). You know that helpless feeling one has when dealing with telcos, well, I decided I can't let that stop us....on two occasions that co. made me jump for joy. One was when crossing the GWB on the way to CT, they told me they had the Nokia switch installed in the basement. We needed this to be completed for the tap to our office. Now we needed to get it connected to our office, which was the 2nd call, Thu. night with a Monday opening.
She said, "I'll see what I can do, and call you back one way or another within the hour." She kept her word and said tech will be out first thing Fri AM. All this for business cable internet, which once everything is in place, was for a backup and internet traffic routed over it (crazy how it's changed nothing gets out today without being inspected and encrypted--there is no "straight to the internet" today at my co.). I had envisioned simply tapping into the neighboring tentant's connection which ran over our MDF....
We went live on the COX cable internet, it was like "up to 300 mbps" which at the time was premium. The MPLS came a week and a half later...
Sure. My parents paid for 8 Mbit/sec AT&T U-Verse for a few years, which was dedicated DSL lines to the home, but otherwise fiber to the neighborhood. I tested the speeds, and it was usually faster than that even though they paid for basic speeds. I heard it could max out at about 24 Mbit/sec and they were supposed to provide all services including TV and voice over the same connection. There was a derisive nickname for those boxes in the neighborhood, where I saw AT&T personnel working on them many times over the years. I think they're starting to phase that out now.
It was weird though because of how they switched to AT&T internet. They had fairly slow (1.5 Mbit/sec max) traditional DSL over their existing phone line. I think it was up to 6 Mbit/sec by then but would have needed newer equipment and the box they had was free. Someone convinced them to switch to a VoIP provider to save money with included long distance. When they put the order in with their exiting phone number transferred, AT&T disconnected their landline at the switching office and the DSL provider lost the connection. After I made a few calls on their behalf, we asked if AT&T could reconnect it as a "dry loop" (suggested by the DSL provider) without phone service and gave up when nobody could give us an answer.
They did have cell phones though, but it was about a week before everything was ready and they could make and receive VoIP calls.
I've got a 3 year old, and it's interesting to think about how I used to communicate with my friends growing up by calling their home phone line...a phone that was easily accessible to the whole family. Now, when he gets older, he'll have to use my wife's or my cell phone to call/chat/whatever if he wanted to contact someone. Interesting "problem" until he has his own phone, which absolutely will not happen until at least middle school.
I don’t really have a whole lot of experience with it, but I recall party lines being shown on one of the 60s CBS rural sitcoms. I remember one episode where a visitor is trying to make an “urgent” outbound call but someone is tying up a shared line gossiping over the phone.
I gave my older daughter an apple watch with Screen Time and other parental control stuff. LTE watch, can call and message people I have control over, knowing where she is at, no way to use "social media" or watch video all day on, no camera.
Almost as good as a dumb phone in 2024.
They did the same to us when we were with 3rd party DSL and they installed uVerse in the neighborhood, thinking that since their list say we don't have a line with ATT they didn't connect our dry loop back.
Took like 1 week to get them to send a live person to look at it and finally connect us back because they didn't bother checking for 3rd party stuff.
