Discontinuance of POTS lines

[mmckenna]

Just for kicks and giggles, here are some photos I took of the latter customer's current setup.

(Oh yea, those are System D blocks and not 66 blocks)

Ah, yes, that's my world.
I work for a research university and me and my team are responsible for radio as well as PBX, voice mail, call centers, anything voice related. About 60% of my job is PBX. About 7000 phone lines we're running. I'm fortunate in that I have a distributed PBX spread across 20 sites, so the most I have at my biggest site is about 1000 users. That keeps the wire plant pretty reasonable, but I do have the AT&T MPOE that at one time looked a lot like that last photo. It's slowly shrunk over the years.
Even now I'm moving about 1500 users a year to VoIP.
POTS will stick around here. Too many instances where analog is the only way to go, either due to Ethernet distance limitations, or special cases where the reliability of POTS and my battery plant are more suited.

 

[lmrtek]

Having worked as a central office technician for Verizon, I have a distinct perspective on the survival of pots lines

Nothing sounds better or is more reliable that twisted pair

Now that virtually all 911 centers are either using phone service via T1 or fiber, it only takes one squirrel chewed cable and 911 goes dark

There is SUPPOSED to be a fiber "ring" so that if one fiber is destroyed the other direction in the ring will tasks the traffic

the only trouble is that in many cases this " ring" is inside the same sheath so when you lose one you lose both!

This coupled with the fact that a lot of the fiber transport equipment in use is so old that no pars are available, its a nightmare

Most of this transport equipment is serviced on windows 95 computers and the only software backups are on 20 year old floppy discs so any data left on them is likely corrupt by now

Until recently, most cell towers were also fed by the phone company networks so when we had network outages, the cell towers were also down

pots lines that run directly from the central office are running out of a 5E switch that runs on a massive set of wet cells and backed up by a massive diesel generator that can run for many days in a disaster

The all their eggs in one basket approach of all 911 systems is a disaster waiting to happen

And EVERY time we experienced high winds, storms, freezing rain, or heavy rains, we would lose 911 centers because of cut fiber

Our equipment in the central office ranged from 1929 technology to the latest fiber equipment but all microwave equipment was removed many years ago in favor of fiber

HUGE MISTAKE!!!

 

[mmckenna]

Yeah, a lot of LEC's and CLECS will talk about ring topologies, but hide the fact that it's in the same cable/different buffer tube or in the same duct banks.
Back in 2008 we discovered that when someone cut a number of fiber cables in our area. We lost all connectivity to the outside world for nearly 24 hours. Satellite phones and two way radios were the only option.

The benefit of that was that it exposed flaws in the carriers networks, and we made sure that AT&T knew that we would not stand for that level of failure again. About a year after that event, they did finally close the ring on the fiber network. However, at the same time we brought our own fiber in from another city to provide an alternate path to the carrier.

As for the PSAP's, that's a design flaw of some centers. While the carriers should know better, so should the agencies running the center. Unfortunately many PSAS managers have little to know knowledge about the technology that makes their centers work. They'll rely on outsourcing support, get the 911 system from the carrier with state funds, and call it good.
A properly designed PSAP will have more than one path in/out. They'll also work with the carrier to make sure there is the ability for 911 calls to fail over to a back up PSAP or another agencies PSAP.
It's not hard to do, but most agencies don't understand the technology enough to know what to ask for.
With FirstNet will come alternate paths for 911 data. Better fiber networks, alternate paths, better trained individuals will address most of these issues.
But like most things, if you build a better mousetrap, they'll just build a better mouse.

 

[com501]

Four counties here in Nevada have a ring using private microwave with redundant drops from different paths. When you can't get to a site for 6-8 months because of snow, you learn to build more robustly. This year, we may not even get to some of the sites before it snows again. It takes a long time to melt 54 FEET of snow.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

It takes a long time to melt 54 FEET of snow.

Sounds like a challenge for one man and a shovel...until he hits ice at least.

 

[Rred]

The problem is, the rubes, ergh, valued customers, are cheap. You want an AT&T landline? $75-100 depending on whether you want regional and long distance and calls on Tuesdays during months that end in an "r".

You go to MetroPCS, you get all that for $30 a month. Hmmm....$30 or 100? Fast choice, and if tey have to curse about quality once a month, hey, blame the cheap phone, right? Even with MaBell, you can expect you won't get calls through o Mother's Day and a couple of other hot days every year.

Bottom line, the rubes won't pay for it. So even if the telco's supply it and maintain it...they'll have to increase prices even more, the remaining customers will start to question the value...POTS is on greased skids, going downhill. Quality and performance lose to mass market and price, every time.

Or maybe like Iridium, they'll get government contracts to keep it alive. Sure.

For the price of one POTS line, I can get 3 cellular lines, 3 different carriers. Surely, at least one of those will keep working?

 

[Project25_MASTR]

The problem is, the rubes, ergh, valued customers, are cheap. You want an AT&T landline? $75-100 depending on whether you want regional and long distance and calls on Tuesdays during months that end in an "r".

You go to MetroPCS, you get all that for $30 a month. Hmmm....$30 or 100? Fast choice, and if tey have to curse about quality once a month, hey, blame the cheap phone, right? Even with MaBell, you can expect you won't get calls through o Mother's Day and a couple of other hot days every year.

Bottom line, the rubes won't pay for it. So even if the telco's supply it and maintain it...they'll have to increase prices even more, the remaining customers will start to question the value...POTS is on greased skids, going downhill. Quality and performance lose to mass market and price, every time.

Or maybe like Iridium, they'll get government contracts to keep it alive. Sure.

For the price of one POTS line, I can get 3 cellular lines, 3 different carriers. Surely, at least one of those will keep working?

I believe I can get a number ported to my IP address for $7 a month right now (granted I'd have to have the PBX running and have the ISP side straightened out).

 

[Rred]

No question, VOIP can be cheaper than cellular. And sometimes, it even works without drop outs, picket fencing, and disconnects. But if VOIP didn't exist, cellular alone would still be enough to kill POTS.

 

[N4GIX]

I haven't had landline service here at my home for the past twenty-odd years. There's just no point to having one. Whenever I'm out I carry my cell phone. Whenever I'm home, I still have my cell phone available...

...in fact, service is so reasonable that I actually have a "backup cell phone" just in case.

Forty years ago however I had 51 lines since I was running a fifty-node PCBoard BBS. Man I'm so glad I don't have that bill to pay any longer.

 

[krokus]

I had a repair man come here because my AT&T DSL was extremely slow. He checked everything all the way from the lines in my house, to the switching box down the road about a mile away. He said it is the equipment in the switching box that is causing the problem, and AT&T won't replace it since they want everyone on their U-verse system. They are just letting the old stuff go when it breaks and won't do anything to repair or replace it.

Since U-Verse runs on DSL, that seems counter-intuitive.

Sent via Tapatalk

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Since U-Verse runs on DSL, that seems counter-intuitive.

Sent via Tapatalk

ADSL. Not DSL.

 

[Rred]

"Since U-Verse runs on DSL,"
Not according to AT&T. DSL runs on plain copper POTS wiring, no changes in or outside the central office to the premises, except for provisioning in the central office.
They have told me expressly that U-verse is not available in my area, because it requires fiber-optic trunk wiring, and we only have legacy copper.

The protocol it runs on (DSL, ADSL, etc.) has got nothing to do with the media it runs on: fiber-optic versus copper.

 

[cmdrwill]

U-Verse does indeed come down the POTS pair of copper wires. Kinda like P25 over the twisted pair, AKA POTS. And yes I have looked at the actual analog signal on the copper.

And although it was reliable here, the costs have gone thru the roof. So, ATT U-Verse is getting the boot end of June.



mm, correct about four blocks to the DSLAM, B Box. One outage, which ATT said was my wires inside the house were bad. I had to tell the ATT tech where the cable was open, as one of my tests before calling was with the TDR, and gave them the distance to 'fault', open. Problem was bad punch down. The cable workmanship has gone as a lost art,

 

[mmckenna]

Correct. It's often fiber to the local DSLAM somewhere in your neighborhood, but it's still twisted pair to your home.