AT&T Applies To End Obligation To Service Landlines In California (cbsnews.com) 115
AT&T is applying to end its obligation to service landlines in certain areas of California. "The application is pending under the California Public Utilities Commission, but the end of a landline means the end of communication for some people," reports CBS News. From the report: The company said in a statement to CBS13: "Our application seeks approval from the CPUC to remove outdated regulations in California and to help the limited remaining landline consumers transition to modern, alternative services to replace their current outdated ones. All AT&T California customers will continue to receive their traditional landline services until an alternative service becomes available by AT&T or another provider." The CPUC will be holding four public hearings on the matter through March.
Not surprised (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair, but then telecos had better prove how they spent the billions they got in subsidies and tax breaks to connect those isolated areas.
You got the benefit of monopoly over copper plus bucketfuls of tax payer dollars. Don't be whining about the costs now.
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Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Not surprised (Score:2)
ATT has taken BILLIONS in federal funds to do the same thing and has given it away as executive bonuses and stock dividends. Now genocide Joe wants to give them more.
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Informative)
Not a meme
Universal Service Fund [fcc.gov]
Prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Universal Service Fund (USF) operated as a mechanism by which interstate long distance carriers were assessed to subsidize telephone service to low-income households and high-cost areas. The Communications Act of 1934 stated that all people in the United States shall have access to rapid, efficient, nationwide communications service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 expanded the traditional definition of universal service - affordable, nationwide telephone service to include among other things rural health care providers and eligible schools and libraries. Today, FCC provides universal service support through four mechanisms:
1. High Cost Support Mechanism provides support to certain qualifying telephone companies that serve high cost areas, thereby making phone service affordable for the residents of these regions.
2. Low Income Support Mechanism assists low-income customers by helping to pay for monthly telephone charges as well as connection charges to initiate telephone service.
3. Rural Health Care Support Mechanism allows rural health care providers to pay rates for telecommunications services similar to those of their urban counterparts, making telehealth services affordable.
4. Schools and Libraries Support Mechanism, popularly know as the "E-Rate," provides telecommunication services (e.g., local and long-distance calling, high-speed lines), Internet access, and internal connections (the equipment to deliver these services) to eligible schools and libraries.
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There it is, this enduring internet meme that the telco's were once given a vast sum to ensure broadband availability to everybody forever but absconded with the funds, and I always wonder what the origin of it is and how much truth there is to it.
It's called the Universal Service Fund [fcc.gov]. Telephone companies paid into it (and charged every person who has service a fee every month to do so). In exchange, they were required to serve any person who didn't have phone service, no matter how high the cost to the phone company might be.
Unfortunately, there's no direct equivalent for wired broadband, at least in terms of "must serve" laws, which is why so many rural users are stuck using cellular service for their Internet connection, which is way more expen
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Just my "I agree"... should just change the current regulation that requires them to provide landline telephone service to they must provide some minimal always on internet service like 10x1 or something with a VoIP phone for a similar fee. They may have a valid argument that mechanization has reduced the density in the countryside to where it's not feasible however.
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The City of Newark says Verizon promised much more. "In the early 1990s, Verizon’s predecessor, New Jersey Bell Telephone Company, requested that the Board subject it to an alternative form of regulation in exchange for the company’s commitment to make New Jersey a 'fully fibered state,'" Newark officials wrote to the state utility board. "The company explained publicly that it pledged to rewire its en
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They installed them based on the summary.
They are asking for permision to not have to support them until the end of times and instead upgrade them to something more modern.
They are even stating they will suport them until an alterntive is in place.
"All AT&T California customers will continue to receive their traditional landline services until an alternative service becomes available by AT&T or another provider."
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According to the ruling following the 1996 telecommunications act, if they replace any segment with fiber connection, they will effectively lock out any competitors who currently have access to the POTS lines and their customers
It is a power play, either give us exclusive access to customers, or we let the lines stop working
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"I retired from the Post Office. I came up here. I could not get a new landline. They said they can't install it so I said let's transfer the landline down there to up here. It's across the street," Pereira said.
Instead, it was disconnected altogether and she's been desperately asking for it back. AT&T doesn't want that obligation anymore. https://www.cbsnews.com/sacram... [cbsnews.com]
So perhaps you should read the article before posting and looking like a complete jackass.
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You were doing so well until that last statement. It makes your post look overly emotional and untrustworthy.
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Informative)
Copper is the medium, VoIP more in the range of protocol.
I don't know why you list VoIP as a replacement for copper. That would be fiber, 5G or perhaps Starlink over which VoIP then runs.
In my country it's gonna be a while before copper is out the door. Both cable and DSL use it.
Re:Not surprised (Score:4)
I misspoke, I should have said SIP over fiber or cellular. I also just focused on voice and not data. We were told 5 years ago by our carrier to get off of copper. The copper infrastructure is no longer being maintained, have a nice day. It used to take 24 hours for a service ticket for copper repair, now it can take over a week.
The local carrier has been spending money putting in fiber 'everywhere'. Much more bandwidth, better lightning protection, etc...
Internally we emulate analog lines with voice gateways; we still have users that 'must' use fax machines; think lawyers and HR, the credit card machines have all been moved over to cellular service as we won't even deal with PCI compliance on our network.
The carrier does the same for those sites that still need 'copper lines', bring it in on fiber and then emulate POTS.
I get that the transition is uneven and there are a lot of factors to contend with but it's happening simply because it is cheaper in the long run for the carrier to pull away from copper. I know the carriers were given boatloads of money to provide service to rural areas, but honestly, does anyone think they actually give a flying fuck? That's just more money in their pocket increasing share holder value. There is no screwing like getting screwed by the telephone company, lol.
Eventually I see fiber for the backbone( already there but growing) and cellular(towers are going up everywhere) for the last mile and even then only in certain situations where it is profitable to do so. If the carrier can make money then they will provide the service.
I currently have fiber to the curb and it's brought into the house on coax so I am already there. I gave up the land line 10 years ago along with the answering machine. But that is not the case for everyone...
Sorry for being all over the place, I am 40 ounces of coffee into it and it's all just stream of thought :)
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't need to maintain the whole copper infrastructure. In my house, phones are still hooked up to copper but what comes in the house is optical fiber hooked up to an ATA which provides signal to the copper hooked up phones. Same can be done at the phone poles level or elsewhere and its already done in a lot of places. So, it's not all one or the other.
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In my house, phones are still hooked up to copper but what comes in the house is optical fiber hooked up to an ATA which provides signal to the copper hooked up phones.
There was voltage on the copper coming in to your house which gave the power that the phones needed to actually work. I am curious how you are powering your phones on the copper line which terminates into fiber, which is not carrying any usable voltages.
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ATAs supply the power to the copper, you need UPSs or generators for the ATA converters wherever they are just like in the all copper days, the phone company building had UPSs and generators. The power didn't come into the copper line by magic.
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Typically backup power comes from a small 12V lead-acid battery, similar to but much smaller than those in ICE vehicles and costing around $30. Our junction box is idiotic about it -- it beeps for the battery to be replaced every six months or so whether it works or not, so we just keep unplugging it and re-plugging it to shut up the beeping. It was only in the last power failure when we immediately had no dial tone that it was really time to replace it, and I'm pretty sure it's going to start beeping in an
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VOIP isn't the replacement for twisted copper, it's the replacement for POTS telephone service, which involves quite a bit more than just twisted copper.
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TELCOS are required to allow competitor access to POTS service lines, with the only exception being those lines that have new fiber sections
That is why TELCOS want to abandon POTS lines, it is to prevent their competitors from using them to provide services, and it is too expensive for them to put fiber lines in to prevent competitor access
Err, what do you think VoIP is transmitted on? (Score:2)
Magic rainbows?
Its copper wires most of the time. Rarely will it be optical fibre (unless its a new install to the exchange) except on backbone lines.
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Depends on where you are. In the more wired parts of the country, fiber for the last mile is getting more and more common, even as retrofits. Few more years, it will be the norm. But they're certainly starting where the most money is.
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the cost to maintain is high
And how much do you think it's going to cost to maintain a five 9 uptime for all the cellular connections? And make sure everyone has cellular connection where they live? Or aren't we doing five 9s any longer?
there is no money in it.
Which will be made up by the exorbitant prices for cellular service using the same excuse they did for not running copper: it costs money to have cell towers everywhere. We've already seen companies force people [arstechnica.com] off lower cost [howtogeek.com] plans (there was an
Re: Not surprised (Score:5, Informative)
Actually is the other way around. For a legacy telco, 70~80% of cost is the cooper from the CO to the user. Going Wireless Local Loop (or whatever the cool kids call it today) is a MASSIVE cost reduction.
besides, landlines as we knew them (as in lines that could work for days on end during power outages) are a dyiing breed.
first came outdoor ADSL DSLAMs backed to the CO by fiber.
then came VDSL.
and then G.FAST.
nowadays, even if cooper is what enters your house, chances are you will have service for ~90min during a power outage.
so, good riddance to landlines everywhere.
long live FttH (G.PON) and G.FAST, and failing that, 5G Advanced in the UHF band
doing telco shit since aug 1998
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Where I am at the copper infrastructure is degraded and is no longer being repaired by the LEC. Copper is dead, the cost to maintain is high and there is no money in it. Everything is moving over to VoIP and for those areas that are somewhat remote there is cellular service. It was a good run for copper but it's time to move on.
All that "fragility" and Boomer mentality about copper lines...and yet all it would take is one bad outage from any one of those multi-state power grids we ignorantly entwined, to shut down basically every other form of communication, to include access to 911.
Incredible we assume that shit is the resounding solution to infrastructure that's considered bulletproof by comparison.
Re: Not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
The sad truth is that much of the "reliable" copper emergency infrastructure has been switched to IP and fiber. Not really sure that the copper phone infrastructure is still as reliable as it used to be.
The phone carriers don't prioritize emergency communications. During Katrina, it was the ham radio operators that kept communications running.
With fires and floods, California needs reliable infrastructure too.
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Fiber has some advantages in a disaster, you don't have to de-energize the lines if poles are knocked over because live fiber it's an electrical or fire hazard.
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Except there aren't very many poles out there that have only non-conductive cables, so you'd still have to wait for someone else to de-energize their lines. Certainly it's an advantage when the cables get loose and dangly and potentially within the reach of people from the ground, which I've had happen a couple times. It turns out the point where they attach the loop of excess cable to the edge of the roof is deliberately made weak, so it always lets go before it tears out of the building material.
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You forgot the biggest potential cause of outages: earthquakes. At least California doesn't have any active volcanoes to add to the mix.
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It's a better strategy to make friends with one of your boomer neighbors who kept his gas pickup.
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Real libertarians would never think of utilizing public services.
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When "real libertarians" are forced to pay taxes and pay for public services it's not hypocritical, unethical, immoral, or inconsistent for them to utilize those public services.
However, when given the opportunity to opt out of those taxes and fees, it would be hypocritical of libertarians to not opt out of all taxes and fees they could but still use the services those fees and taxes fully fund.
Rarely, however, are libertarians given that option as they are subject to the tyranny of the majority.
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In my rural area with lots of trees, giant hills, small mountains, etc, others and I can't even get stable signals. It's very weak or nothing at all. :(
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NOT TRUE
Where I live, in an area that is NOT remote (3 miles from a major national highway, 5 miles from the county seat), there is pretty much zero cellular service anywhere in the village. There pockets like this all over the nation.
I have text messaging, on an old-style phone; no voice signal; my relatively modern "smart" phone does not work anywhere except a small area upstairs. We cannot have a "smart" electricity meter because
Uptime? (Score:4, Interesting)
How close have any of the alternatives gotten to the uptime that traditional POTS landlines had in the US? Other things (e.g. VOIP) are certainly cheaper, and the difference in uptimes may not always justify the difference in cost for many uses. However, there are some cases where being as close to 100% uptime as possible is important. 911 emergency calling is one such case that is often given a lot of importance by lawmakers, regulators, the public, etc. even though 911 calls are only a tiny fraction of the overall phone call volume. Based upon the maps they publish on their websites, all 3 of the big US mobile providers have parts of California where they don't even claim coverage, so mobile isn't necessarily a universal backup option (yet).
Re:Uptime? (Score:4)
How close have any of the alternatives gotten to the uptime that traditional POTS landlines had in the US? Other things (e.g. VOIP) are certainly cheaper, and the difference in uptimes may not always justify the difference in cost for many uses. However, there are some cases where being as close to 100% uptime as possible is important. 911 emergency calling is one such case that is often given a lot of importance by lawmakers, regulators, the public, etc. even though 911 calls are only a tiny fraction of the overall phone call volume. Based upon the maps they publish on their websites, all 3 of the big US mobile providers have parts of California where they don't even claim coverage, so mobile isn't necessarily a universal backup option (yet).
That was the big plus of POTS - even if there was no cell or internet service an /or peer was down, you almost always could get a dial tone.
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That was the big plus of POTS - even if there was no cell or internet service an /or peer was down, you almost always could get a dial tone.
Considering how a local power outage will take down the cellular service that 90%+ would rely on to dial 911 in a life-threatening emergency, I'd say the impact amounts to a hell of a lot more than just a "big plus".
We're not even thinking straight when it comes to the replacements.
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If a local power outage has taken out the cell towers, then it's just as likely to have taken out the local POTS exchange.
With cellular you potentially have a bit more resiliency - if there are multiple towers within range one might still be working. Cellular devices tend to be battery powered so they will last a while during a power outage, and chargers (battery packs, cars etc) are ubiquitous.
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That's why I kept my old land line for many years after until the cost of keeping the original copper just became too much.
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If a local power outage has taken out the cell towers, then it's just as likely to have taken out the local POTS exchange.
With cellular you potentially have a bit more resiliency - if there are multiple towers within range one might still be working. Cellular devices tend to be battery powered so they will last a while during a power outage, and chargers (battery packs, cars etc) are ubiquitous.
A single local POTS exchange can service thousands of homes in the area, and is usually backed up by a large generator capable of running for many days, servicing lines buried underground. As long as power runs from the CO, you have dial tone down the line. This can provide emergency comms for an entire area affected or impacted by power outages/storms, with only a single location needing power.
The limited cellular towers with hardware several hundred feet in the air that might be undamaged after a bad st
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Thanks for admitting you have no idea what you're talking about. POTS lines get ringing voltage from the line itself, they have five 9s of uptime even during power outages.
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The voltage comes from the exchange not the line itself, so the exchange still needs to have power. Sure it may have backup batteries and generators, but so can a cell tower.
If there is a power outage in the area the exchange will be cut off from power too, and it will be running on backup batteries/generators (if it has them) for as long as they last.
Power runs along cables same as POTS lines. If a disaster has happened which cut power lines, it could just as easily have cut telephone lines.
The exchange re
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It's a lot easier (and cheaper) to install and maintain, and test one big generator at the exchange that it is a small one for every cell tower. And those cell towers connect to . . . the nearest exchange anyway.
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I'm skeptical of five 9s of reliability for a residential POTs line, but that's a moot point because the vast majority of those lines are connected to cordless phones that require AC power to work. :(
FWIW, fiber-to-the home systems have very good availability too, IFF you maintain UPS for your ONI and Voip gateway.
As above, that's moot too if that's plugged into a cordless phone that requires a power brick.
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The choice to use ONLY cordless phones and not keep an old $10 "dumb" phone around (even if not plugged in) is a choice of the consumer. One can probably find such phones for free if one asks around.
If one has purchased property with the assumption, based on the universal service requirement, that it would have landline service with its high reliability, elimination of that service is a pretty big deal.
I know people who live in heavily forested hilly areas where there is no cell service, in spite of being w
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If a local power outage has taken out the cell towers, then it's just as likely to have taken out the local POTS exchange.
That may be true today. But back when POTS was dominant, local exchanges had HUGE DC batteries to keep phone service alive. These could keep phones up on their own, in some cases for days - and when the battery voltage fell too low, they could bring in generators to recharge them.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that keeping one of today's exchanges alive would take a much bigger generator and would consume a lot more fuel. Clacking relays and ringing bells took some power, but I'm guessing the modern comput
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Not so much these days though, as the POTS backhaul is probably the same thing as the cellular and internet service backhaul now.
Often they do have things like battery backup for cellular, with a fibre or microwave link upstream. POTS is no more reliable in that sense - if the local exchange loses power and there is no backup, your phone won't work.
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Defense Switched Network [army.mil]
It's the military's POTS system. It's still running with its own backhaul. The presumption is that the commercial system might not work.
So yeah, the Army's phones will work in most situations where the other 335 million are down.
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And that has nothing to do with POTS in and of itself, and everything to do with spending the time and effort to eliminate as many possible causes of downtime as possible.
But you also ran into issues like 'unable to make a long distance call because all of physical pairs of copper between cities is already in use.'
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True. But for emergency services if someone in your home has a stroke ("Time is Brain") a call to another city is rarely needed to summon help - but a call to a local emergency number may well be.
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It's extremely unlikely that those areas that lack cellular coverage have some existing copper landline infrastructure.
Never been to the Catskills eh?
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Within a ten minute drive of me there are quite a few people who don't have cell service at their homes due to rugged terrain but have had landlines since the homes were built 70 years ago. Their land line service is quite reliable though even during power outages.
As well, a "flat on the side of the road" in this area is not an "emergency" - it's an inconvenience (as the weather is mild) and is (assuming one has had the sense to not buy a car with at least a compact spare) easily remedied via "self help" (g
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However, there are some cases where being as close to 100% uptime as possible is important.
You misspelled "were". For the most part the idea and era which necessitated perfect uptime is past. We have progressed from the point where a phone line was essential to a time where communication is ubiquitous in a wide variety of forms. Yes my fibre has gone down. Yes my mobile has gone down. I even have had a POTS outage. But what I've never had is all three go down at once.
We should be investing in redundancy not gold plating a simplex system.
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I actually lived during the time when POTS lines were everywhere. Uptime was not as stratospheric as some might think. While POTS lines did survive many power failures because they carried their own power, they too went down in major disasters or big storms. They also frequently suffered from overloading. The phone itself might have been operational, but long-distance calls would get a "fast busy" signal, indicating that the lines were congested.
Today's cell service also enjoys very good uptime, even in man
Such crafty language (Score:3, Insightful)
All AT&T California customers will continue to receive their traditional landline services until an alternative service becomes available by AT&T or another provider."
"Alternative service", huh? And what exactly do they define that to mean? In the wording provided, sounds to me like anything wireless, including cellular and/or satellite, could be construed to be exactly that. In court, they could say, "This residence already has access to Starlink internet services. With a VoIP phone, they would have access to services equivalent to what was provided by AT&T's landline."
Fuck AT&T. They're another corporation trying to minimize their liabilities to maximize their profits. I hope California doesn't let them get away with it. Better yet, I hope CA passes a bill that says instead, "AT&T must maintain all existing landline services to residences, unless they replace existing landlines with fiber optic cabling and its associated services." Because that's what Pacific Bell promised 30 years ago, and they received millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to deliver exactly that. [huffpost.com]
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Pardon them for dancing around regulations, half of which are burdensome BS?
Why is Snark Required?
This is why.
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Fuck AT&T. They're another corporation trying to minimize their liabilities to maximize their profits.
This is why you had superior service compared to elsewhere, well-stocked shelves, and so on.
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> This is why you had superior service compared to
> elsewhere
Not superior compared to Japan, or Korea, or the UK, or Germany, or Taiwan, or Sweden, or Singapore, or France, or the Netherlands or... Shall I keep going?
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"alternative service by... another provider"
Hey, TMobile has a tower that's juuuust within the maximum expected range for 4G, so you're good, right?
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"Alternative service", huh? And what exactly do they define that to mean? In the wording provided, sounds to me like anything wireless, including cellular and/or satellite, could be construed to be exactly that.
That's a good question, one I am confident will come out in public hearings. I assumed this meant AT&T is trying to get rid of analog POTS and that VoIP over a wired internet connection would count as an alternative. I don't think it especially matters whether that's over copper DSL or optical so long as it can handle the 50 kbps throughput required. Note, providing 100 Mbps broadband does not seem a requirement to me.
If that's all they're trying to do, I get it and it doesn't seem nefarious. I really d
Landlines work in a power outage (Score:3)
During the Northeast blackout of 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] I was working in Philadelphia, just south of the blackout area. I was able to call home to NYC because of an old fashioned phone that just plugged into the phone jack and didn't need any external power supply. The phone system ran it's own power over the old fashioned copper wire.
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This. Cell phone towers run off the same grid you do. If a larger outage takes them down, no phone either. No such problem with copper.
On the other hand, any outages that large are easily noticed and so don't need to be called in.
As an aside, if your whole neighnorhood or subdivision goes down, don't assume someone will call it in. I called it in once after 20 minutes, and the downage was news to the electric company.
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This. Cell phone towers run off the same grid you do.
I'd be shocked if most towers didn't have UPSs and/or backup generators.
When I lived in the Northeast, tree limbs would take out the telephone lines along with the power. Cell service could arguably be more reliable.
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Be very, very shocked.
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Where do you think the phone company gets its power from?
The government has uptime mandates on copper lines and this goes back a long time. Phone companies could actually get in trouble for service failures so they had good battery and generator systems. The same could be done with cell towers.
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This isn't feasible. The central office has large backup generators and fuel stores. There are a LOT of cell towers out there. implementation and monthly maintenance alone would be an extremely high cost.
If it could be done, that would be really great. Until your cell phone battery died....
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In most cases that's easily remedied at a person's home. One can maintain a small generator or just use the one that comes with every ICE car - it may not be very efficient, but I can charge many, many phones (even in parallel) with just a quarter tank of gas (and perhaps just the existing 12V battery charge).
Depending on needs I can use various charging strategies. I can charge one phone at a time just off existing 12V b
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I am plenty resourceful enough to not go without basic comms also.
The problem is that lack of funds, knowledge, or disability can make this quite impossible for some. I would bet good money that these "some" also just happen to be a good portion of those still using POTS lines.
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Phone companies could actually get in trouble for service failures so they had good battery and generator systems. The same could be done with cell towers.
It strikes me that there are probably a lot more cell towers than there were POTS exchanges. Even if you only back up a third of the towers, that's still a huge upfront cost, as well as a huge maintenance cost. And in the case where cell antennas are on top of, say, apartment buildings, and the generator is up there and low on fuel, and the elevators are down because of the power failure... I'll also hazard a guess that on a per-call-handled basis, cellular infrastructure consumes a lot more power than POTS
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Where do you think the phone company gets its power from?
Multiple ties to the public grid, batteries, and backup generators when the grid fails, same as any other mission critical data center. Where do you think the power comes from?
Fun bit of trivia. A local TV station I was working with had a mechanical battery. They had an enormous flywheel spinning all the time. If power dropped, the flywheel ran a generator which could keep the station running for a number of hours. It's crazy something like that works but it does.
Re:Landlines work in a power outage (Score:4, Informative)
During the ice storm in the Northeast (Upstate New York, Maine, and parts of Quebec, etc., only POTS was functional immediately after, power was out to my home at the time for 11 days, some for 18 days. Telephone service survived largely because the aerial lines were below all the other utilities such as electrical transmission, local distribution, cable TV, even municipal signaling.
And Verizon maintained service by conscripting generators, chargers, and batteries for the DSLAMs necessary to provide service to the last mile or so. It required also that the Maine National Guard provide fuel for this work. Batteries and chargers came from Massachusetts, which had suffered a similar storm the year before centered on Cape Cod, where the current Maine director of operations worked, having transferred from that region. He knew what was needed.
With this effort many who needed life-sustaining medical equipment were identified, contacted, and served. Emergency services were able to save many lives. And of course trouble reports were made possible. My sister lived in a house about a quarter mile from the main road, and electric service crews missed her for an additional week, not realizing there was a line into the woods. Her telephone service went down with that line. I got a call from her when she was at work, contacted a Central Maine Power executive I knew, and they were on site within an hour. Woops. Wood stoves and artesian well in the breach...
Electric crews came from as far as Hawaii to assist in restoration, Eastern Maine hit the hardest. The upshot is that POTS was a vital service during this event, irreplaceable. Today cell service would rely upon backup power, and that might not last 11 days, and further might not be able to, in any way, be extended to address the need.
POTS was a literal life saver here, but knowing how copper is built, this is indeed a technology that either needs modernization or replacement. ATT should be required to offer existing users similar, replacement service, and perhaps CPUC should require this at no significant change in costs, as these users are not at fault. If wireless service is the answer, it should be required to offer the same level of service, hardened against power outages and natural disasters. Walking away from POTS probably does make sense, if the replacement is of similar reliability and performance. And no, ATT doesn't get to claim that current POTS is in any way less reliable than some substitute, this current diminished reliability is more due to ATT's failing craft and maintenance. I see it in Arizona, and it is not anything but lack of attention. No excuse.
also add no new contracts, no hardware to buy or r (Score:2)
also add no new contracts, no hardware to buy or rent for users forced moved off of POTS.
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Correct, replacement not 'upgrade', and for the life of the subscriber, not merely tenancy. They are forcing a change in tech, let them provide the same true lifeline service.
And installation, Many of the affected subscribers may need assistance to deal with this. Look, the burden should be on ATT to provide suitable service if they wish to abandon the current systems.
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Should be for the life of the structure or replacement structure unless the character of the structure/land changes significantly (such as from residential to agricultural) or until the structure is effectively abandoned for an extended time. Basically, as long as service is being paid for without an extended gap (perhaps more than five years), service must continue to be available.
Re: Landlines work in a power outage (Score:2)
I was not referencing any cell site work, just the d-slams and all the necessary work going on. Put in the batteries to do backup power. I think AT&t did have cell service and main back then, but it could have been Cingular. Not to cell sites. Sorry
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It is confusing to me that so many here do not comprehend how important it is that there is a communications option for times when power has failed for extended periods. I do understand how people could see wireless and VOIP options as more than sufficient if they've never experienced an ice storm that takes out power for 1 or more days in an area. Carriers are required to maintain landline 911 service for extended periods. This service does not require the end user to supply anything but a simple handse
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Cell towers, at least in my area, also have their own generators. There are many times that the power is out, but cell calls still work.
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State granted monopoly (Score:4, Interesting)
AT&T wants to keep its state granted monopoly to provide land-line service, without actually providing land-line service.
Otherwise, it would be easier to spin off the the land-line component and let it dwindle into bankruptcy.
This is about how far AT&T will go to prevent competition, even over a dying product.
Next question: Does the Calfornia Legislature have the will to cancel AT&T's state granted monopoly?
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Next question: Does the Calfornia Legislature have the will to cancel AT&T's state granted monopoly?
Only if there's more money in it for the legislators. I'd guess AT&T can afford more in bribes, er, contributions.
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Next question: Does the Calfornia Legislature have the will to cancel AT&T's state granted monopoly?
There is zero chance. AT&T knows who they need to bribe and they won't fail to pay.
Bell Canada Too! (Score:3)
The old twisted-pair phone was very reliable. If we ever had to call 911, they would have known instantly who and where we were because our twisted-pair phone number was registered with them. And during the Big Ice Storm of 1998, when we were without electrical power for 8-1/2 days, the twisted-pair phone worked almost all of the time, enabling us to keep in touch with relatives and essential services, all the while when the cell phone towers were without power or had suffered damage from the excessive ice load. And of course Canada is among the most expensive countries in the world for cost of cell phone services, while our old twisted-pair service wasn't really expensive at all.
As a life-long technophile I hate to say it, but "so much for modern technology".
California, Don't do it! (Score:1)
To California, DO NOT LET AT&T HAVE THIS.
In Michigan, the MI Legislature changed the law to allow companies like AT&T discontinue the copper land line in favor of Fiber and 4g (at the time). AT&T's public claim was that they needed to be free from the law that said they had to provide copper lines. The law has a clause that says something to the effect of "service must exist" to the location. The original bill said a "good quality service must exist" to any and all locations. I know people t
AT&T abandoned its copper infrastructure long (Score:4, Insightful)
In my neighborhood it isn't possible to sign up for wired phone service because there are no available pairs to lease. Most longtime residents had gotten two pairs to do bonded DSL, and the remaining pairs in the ground had been severed over the years with no attempt to repair them.
Maybe the CPUC could demand that the copper infrastructure be replaced with fiber rather than letting service territory go dark. The telcos have been getting great subsidies for a long, long time. We should get something for all that money.
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Brick and mortar (Score:2)
Don't businesses still use landlines? I can't see every receptionist and hair salon having to guard common mobile devices so they don't get stolen every day.
AT&T has been exiting copper for 20 years (Score:2)
At least they're honest (Score:2)
I had an AT&T landline for years. It became super unreliable. They never succeeded in fixing it, but they kept raising the price exponentially hoping I'd quit, so I did.
At least now they are saying up front they want out, instead of pretending to actually offer landline service.
BTW, I've connected one of our cellphones to the landline house wiring, so all the old landline phones in the house still work just fine.
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no landline (Score:1)
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What a bunch of hyperbolic nonsense.
Especially when the quote goes on to say "All AT&T California customers will continue to receive their traditional landline services until an alternative service becomes available by AT&T or another provider." In other words, no one who currently has analog landline service will be cut off, they must may need to change services.
That last bit is an assumption on my part. I didn't find anything which defined what "landline" means. I think it means analog POTS. I assume it doesn't mean VoIP service, as