Future Of Landline Phones
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-12-06/future-landline-phones
Landline phone use is plummeting. The telecom industry argues it should no longer be required to provide the service. Consumer groups disagree. The future of the landline.
Guests
Scott Cleland
chief executive of The Precursor Group
Gigi Sohn
president and co-founder of Public Knowledge
Betty Ann Kane
chairman of the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia
Craig Moffet
senior analyst for U.S. Telecommunications, Cable and Satellite at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co
Comments
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Hi Diane, my name is Virginia. Love your show and listen every day at work. My question to your panel is, are there any other providers who's service is compatible with ADT? The only reason we keep our Verizon service is because we were told or are under the impression that Verizon is the only provider compatible with our ADT security system. Thank you!
I live on the MD eastern shore - 2 hrs east of DC. 3 points:
1. the phone company ran fiberoptic lines to the area 10 years ago, but stopped, leaving copper to the homes.
2. cellphones don't work at my house in the summer and only slightly in the winter when the tree leaves drop. I have to drive 6 miles toward the main highway to get decent cell service and that is unpredictable on weekends during heavy tourist car traffic.
3. The industry spokesperson said only 30% of the people have landlines - that is a LOT of people. Then his jargon labeled that as a "few" people, and then he referred to a "small" percent. That is just too artful to accept.
In Texas, the largest state flood wiped out all cell towers for a week, the landlines never lost service.
Having been through hurricanes and ice storms every member of my extended family has a land line.
We recently terminated our contract with AT&T for internet phone service (bundled under Uverse) for our 85 year old mother as it was a nightmare. Terribly unreliable. Had us driving considerable distances at top speeds to see if she was OK.
We need a powered, wired or fiber optic system. I don't trust the phone companies promises to provide as reliable service any other way. AT&T was horrible to deal with and never could/would make it right.
How many cell phone towers would it take to provide as reliable service in rural areas? And what about the "all circuits are busy now" situation that frequently occurs during peak times with cell phone service? I do not want to rely on my cell in an emergency. And let's hope that phone battery is fully charged!
Diane,
Lots of miss-information from one of your guests.
We live in an area where severe weather is not uncommon. We have lost electrical power for over a week on a dozen occasions in the last twenty years. Although, I can prepare and have standby power at my residence. I cannot harden the infrastructure in our town.
For that reason, we maintain a traditional, - POTS (Plain Old Telephone System), that is copper to the central office. It has NEVER failed. The central office maintains emergency generators.
Yes, we do have internet service that could replace that telephone line. However, the replacement would use either a cable modem or a DSL line. The cable network, which provides TV and Internet, requires power to numerous nodes and amplifiers between the cable company and our residence. Each of those devices receives electrical power from the local distribution at the location of the device. Loose power anywhere in that path and loose cable TV/Internet. We loose ours at an unacceptable rate.
Likewise, DSL frequently uses remote terminals to close the distance gap between the central office and the residence. The cellular system requires a system of towers, three to five miles apart. All need reliable electrical power and are equipped with batteries but will fail in hours.
We have experienced severe weather that has disabled cable TV/Internet, telephone company remote terminals and cell towers. However, the copper line, POTS, has never failed.
Abandoning the old copper lines may be a financial goal for ATT, but it's not the best decision for the country.
Scott argues for competition. If we really want competition for rates and services, cell phone and internet companies should not be allowed to demand contracts locking consumers in. If the customer can walk at anytime, they would work a lot harder to please the customer.
Please discuss vulnerability of all cell phones and needed equipment. Switching equipment towers and locations with limited volume needs available.
I live in northeast Ohio near several large cities and for the past ten years cell phone signals have been either non existent or weak inside and outside the house. The towers are visible from my home. Walk hundred yards in up and down the street and the signal becomes usable. The various cell phones I've owned over the years perform poorly as do other phones of visitors. Verizon and T-Mobile describe this as a dead spot and offer no solution. Also, I just spent a week on a farm near Lake Ontario where no cell phone service was available and again the tower was visible a half mile away. Keep the land line service, it is essential and far less expensive.
I live 20 miles south of Boston MA. The cell reception in my house is horrible to non-existent. I have to walk into my driveway to make or receive a call (one bar).
My natural preference is a land line... They ate easier to ignore.
Being reachable everywhere is a horror mistaken for progress.
I am not old.
A comparison was made to utilities companies. Why shouldn't the telecommunications companies be required to be non-profit?
Satellite phone service? A solution in any way?
There are a few critical areas (and PUBLIC utilities is one of them) that CANNOT and SHOULD NOT be deregulated. What we have today is greed tapping into an captive assured market, working hand in hand a set of "elected" representatives brought to power with considerable corporate funding, to build insane wealth without associated social obligation for captive public resources.
It is easy to understand claims that rural customers will have fewer options than non-rural counterparts, and this to be expected given the economics. However, the degree of the gap in rural coverage is less than one might assume, particulary with regard to mobile voice service. So, when we consider the need for intervention to ensure service, we must consider the degree of the problem. Rural areas represent approximately 20% of the population. Areas without wireless voice coverage are significantly less than that.
Mobile wireless voice - with all of the incentives of competition to maintain quality and to innovate - is available extensively to the U.S. population. According to the FCC, as of 2010, 99.8% of the US population had access to 1 or more mobile wireless voice provider(s) to choose from. 99.2% had 2 or more. 97.2% had 3 or more. 94.3% had 4 or more. 89.6% had 5 or more. Many providers have upgraded and continue to upgrade so their networks can accommodate both mobile voice and mobile broadband.
While some might point out that moible wireless population coverage is greater than land area coverage, that is not a factor when comparing to landlines, which have zero mobility. And the risk of oversubscription or overcrowding of capacity in an emergency may be lower in rural areas.
Pat Brogan -- USTelecom
The U.S. has the worst coverage and most expensive cell phone service in the world. Until the phone companies can provide cell coverage everywhere, the companies cannot be permitted to abandon POTS. I live within sight of a cell tower owned by AT&T and can't get a signal in my home without special equipment. I can't get a signal driving on large portions of I-95 in five southern states. Until these kinds of situations are resolved, the companies must be forced to continue POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service)
Too often big companies team up with regulatory authorities and law makers to take advantage of consumers. Until that situation is resolved, the POTS questions won't be resolved.
It is important to move the discussion away from rhetoric describing the communications industry as competitive. It is not. It consists of only 2 principal phone companies - Verizon and ATT - and a couple of principal cable companies. Any good economist will identify this as an oligopoly and a highly imperfect market. Oligopolies, as the robber baron era exemplified, are driven to maximize profits (as is any company) BUT they are not constrained toward lower prices by a functioning market. Thus regulations to guarantee emergency access, for example, need to be dictated by state or federal law since these are not money makers. Costs, provided they reviewed for gouging by a regulatory body, are then passed on to customers.
Mobile voice is great, but it still relies predominately on a landline network and copper is still a major component of delivery.
We have AT&T land line which comes over the same wires as our AT&T aDSL, so I don't see either of these going away anytime soon (sorry, didn't hear the show, I usually listen via podcast/download).
Main reason I maintain the land line is so If needed I can dial 911 and drop the phone, the operator will get a physical address, and from prior dealings with 911 operators the 'dial and drop' may get quicker response than trying to explain the situation.
Another reason is, this is the phone number Wife and I have had for 20 years, we do get calls on it, and transferring the number to a cell would get us calls from telemarketers on the cell instead of them talking to the answering machine.
I live in rural Appalachia and we don't have cell service at all. Land lines are still very necessary in some areas. I have a cell that works in town and stays in the car because 5 miles out of town, service is gone. I know several other families who use only land lines because that's all we have!
CharlieTally wrote:
"Satellite phone service? A solution in any way?"
Maybe, but with current technology, there would be a delay, right?
I'm not against progress by any means, but sometimes you are at the physical bounds of what can be done. In other words, what he have with land-lines, for what it provides and what it does is the best it can be, design-wise. You can argue copper v fiber optics, etc., but the basics of a line (of some sort) under ground going from house to house may be the best model for reliable, quality service.
What are people in extremely rural areas supposed to do? There are many people in northwestern and central New Mexico that do not have service other than a land line. This includes the Forest Service.
So what effec would this have for wires in the home. who pays for the conversion to cable satellite or othe service. to use a phone. Digital was suppose to reduce cost. My wireless bill has gone up. Pluse VOIP will only make things easer HLS to access all of you privacy.
The problem with a loss of 'landline' service is there are a great many areas that have no cell service and it would be very costly to give service to these rural areas.
Before Raygun-the-Great deregulated the utilities they were required by law to reinvest their profits to new equipment and upgrades.
The other side of the deal for them to be deregulated was that they would make certain that every household in America would have internet access through fiber-optics by 1999.
The utilities did not make this happen. The cables were put in but never installed to homes in many areas - especially rural areas.
We pay taxes for something called "internet access recovery".
Social contracts seem too easily broken and nobody is held accountable.
Remember when there was ONE phone company and they had such control over phones that the only thing we could choose was the color of the phone the installer brought to our homes to hook up for us?
There is no question that the quality of cell phone service is unreliable and even in the best of service areas the quality is not near the quality of landlines.
While the traditional landline network offers consumers the benefit of voice service, IP technology benefits match and exceed – high speed broadband networks also offer advanced opportunities for education, health, civic engagement and more.
Many consumers have already opted to make the move to IP technology, a trend that I believe will continue.
I never had a cell phone, and not long ago I got rid of my land-line phone. E-mail is all I want or need. Bliss!
Here in Southeastern Utah there are couple of problem with cell phones:
- coverage or non-existant, in marginal in many places.
- in some places, coverage is dependent on the particular carrier. Two people can stand side-by side. One person's cell phone will have bars and be able to talk. The other person's cell phone, on a different carrier, will have no bars and be unable to talk.
If the traditional telcos are allowed to abandon the universal service requirement, they should be required to provide universal coverage for cell phones. It may be necessary to move ALL cell phone carriers under regulation by the state utility commission, or similar regulator.
When improvements are promised, there should be real penalties for failure to meet the promises. There should be SUBSTANTIAL fines, millions of dollars, accompanied by a mandatory freeze of two or three years so that the fine is paid by the company, and its shareholders, rather than be passed on to the company's customers.
We haven't had a landline for several years at home, and that is working well. However, we own a business where we have a landline, and it's hard to imagine migrating away from relying on the landline for the
business. What is the trend in the business world, and does the changes in the service requirements affect business lines?
Lots of things are not "economically prudent" in the guest's words. It makes no sense having 5 guys sit around a station with $5 million in red-painted trucks- until there is a fire. Thousands of other examples exist.
Technology is a ruse in this context. This is about the telecoms getting their cake and eating it too, without having to worry about the dirty dishes.
The broadband and internet services are limited severely by themselves. They do not want to give us an internet or other infrastructure that is anything but barely adequate. Worldwide, our internet (and phone) services are extememly expensive and a laughable joke in comparison to developed and developing countries.
Further, a relative of mine oft stated you can tell when the free market is working perfectly: When the same item has the same price no matter the provider, when "competition" means a single provider in a marketplace. There is also no back up plan in this conversion for solar flares, nuclear or other disasters. Land lines are simple, the copper conducts, period.
Finally, if this conversion is so needed then the companies should have to provide the phones free as a matter of personal, local and national security. I use a rotary phone in emergencies (no electrical cord needed), it is from the 1960's. Cell phones last about 18 months (whereas the contracts are about 24 months, hmmm...). When the devices are reliable and durable I will be interested. Until then a land line it is.
If not for the existing social contract, we would all be stuck at the mercy of profiteer corporations. And, for myself, I do not want my location transmitted to anyone, period. I dont care how great the technology may be, it is my right to not be tracked!
If not for social contracts, mandates, and indeed, the big bad awful government intervening on behalf of its citizens (even against their wishes)tion, there would be not only no phone service, but no Seattle (Grand Coulee Dam), Las Vegas and California water (Boulder Dam), interstate highways, among almost countless other examples.
And, without this contract for telephones, we sure as heck would still be paying Western Union by the telegraphed character.
Modernization indeed.
"Before Raygun-the-Great "
I believe you mean President Ronald Reagan.
He is due the respect of the office whether you liked him as President or not.
If you're going to demand that respect for the current President, you need to respect all of them.
When the panelist mentioned that landline companies are "only" getting 2% profits I almost chuckled.
These days a profit of 2% is far more desirable than losing money. Consider, for example, that savings accounts, money market accounts, and bank CDs earn far less than half that rate. Lets make a swap. I will give up my landline if my savings can earn 2% after taxes. Poor AT&T. A landline here costs 34 a month for a barebones line.......no features at all, no long distance, no caller ID, only using it to keep the security system connected to fire and police. A wireless option costs over 100 to install and 11 a month after that (and thats going up) and who knows about reliability. At 35 a month a data plan per month per phone is overkill. DSL and ADSL are far too slow for Net traffic compared to cable. There really is NO competition......the "free" market fails again.