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
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
Uncle Jeffy wrote:
"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."
I've asked this question before, but can never get a serious answer to it. Why is it that when progressives laud the benefits of big government, they only list things that are the proper purview of the FG; defense, infrastructure, etc. that everybody takes advantage of and agrees with.
"Countless other examples"? How about these examples:
How about the Agricultural Marketing Service
How about the Ability One Commission
How about the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Interagency Coordinating Committee
I'm not making these up. They're just from the "A"s of HUNDREDS of government departments.
"Big bad awful government" indeed!
We have several phone extensions in the house on our land line. I can pick up any phone for a call almost any where. If the call is for my wife, I can have her take the phone. How does that work with a cell phone? Do I have to carry it with me from room to room? If I take the phone out with me, how would my wife receive a call?
Use of land lines at home with good tower access may be dropping but motels, hotels and business are unlikely to part with the land line unless better quality and reliable wireless IP service becomes available.
If you are buying your phone service from the Cable TV company you probably don't realize that the cable system requires much more infrastructure service. Crews working on the Cable TV system late at night cut off whole neighborhoods when emergency phone service can be critical. If your cable TV telephone modem does not have a working battery back up loss of power means loss of service and in storms that take down lines cable TV service requires power for every amplifier in the line between you and the head end and is much more easily disrupted than plain old telephone service which gets its power from the central office equipped with diesel generators and batteries.
The Big Telcos AT&T and Verizon want out of the required local service for the same reason AT&T dumped all local service onto the baby bells years ago profits. The same Verizon and AT&T want to sell wireless over wireline because of the profits. A person wanting cheap unadvertised wire line service can get that for less than ten dollars a month. If AT&T is allowed to drop that service you'll be paying for a much more expensive VoIP service with poorer quality provided by AT&T. Verizon dumped local service in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire to Fair Point Communications within weeks the "new" carrier went bankrupt.
For people in places like the hallows of West Virginia that are out of cellphone range, couldn't they replace the need for landlines with satellite phones? Satellite coverage could reach down into the valleys where cell towers aren't available.
Landline Value:
Security, Availability, Reliability:
Copper NEVER goes down while VoIP does with power failures, and cell phone batteries have a limited lifetime uncharged. This is vital for health issues that may require a 911 response, and provides a lifeline for home security systems.
Flexibility, Reliability:
Landlines offer connectivity where and when mobile phone service is unavailable, or building structure interferes with or prevents mobile phone signals.
Very good explanation of the physical layer of the communications network. As a retired engineer for AT&T, one thing I would also like to add: IP phones are still using either copper, fiber optics or coaxial cable (e.g. Time Warner) for the connection to the home/business so the speaker saying we need to upgrade to newer technologies is misleading. Either we are tethered via something "physical" located overhead wiring or in the ground, over the airwaves (cellular/wireless even microwave) or satellite (not part of this discussion).
I wish the conversation had talked about what it would take to first upgrade the cellular network for reliability and second enlarge the cellular network to handle everyone in the US. (remember a cell has only has a finite number of frequencies and as one moves from one cell to another the frequency changes and is reused. If everyone in a neighborhood had only cellular and everyone decided to use their cell phone at once, how many would be able to? In the "copper" world there is a also a finite number, but it is typically much higher.) IF everyone went to cellular service would the network support it? The size of the cell would have to be drastically smaller (more towers/antennas). Would there then be a mandate to provide cellular service universally? There is no mandate now.
If the universal mandate is rejected, then the country would become divided by the have and have nots. The political ramifications are tremendous. Poorer areas in a city, rural, western states, etc all could be a financial decision whether or not to provide communications. Who would maintain the existing "physical" infrastructure? Would select areas continue while others would be abandoned? This is for the government to step up and address. They must consider the universal mandate, not just the profitability of the carrier. I'm not feeling the love.
There is a local aspect to the universal access problem. Carriers lobby city and county supervisors and commissioners for more towers in densely populated areas as their business plans indicate the demographics to be most profitable. In my area of the central coast of California, there has been no demand for carriers to reveal their access footprints. Officials need only to require all carriers to submit maps of their footprints for superimposition to determine non-accessible areas, and then tell the carriers to divvy up coverage for those areas. Only then shall they receive permission for more towers in densely populated areas.
1) After Hurricane Katrina, 2005, in the New Orleans area, cellphones were out. Towers were down, towers still up were without power. For weeks. Cellphone companies were not, and to my knowledge, are STILL not required by law to have enough working electric generators and temporary towers on standby for disasters.
2) And officials? Why, forget " first responder communications interoperability". They'd all gone to cellphones, so that meant nobody could talk to anybody except "by runner"---or shortwave---or marine sat phone---for a real long time.
3) Landlines still worked in much of the area. Circuits were busy, but in the dead of night, it was the only way we could get thru to our loved ones to find out if they were alive and safe and if they had adequate survival needs. For 3 WEEKS.
4) Now, with power-hungry DSL land lines, in an electric power outage the company's battery backup lasts only a few hours. If they don't bring portable electric generator in to keep it going, the landlines go down. They don't like doing this because generators tend to get stolen, and someone has to refuel it every 2 hours.
5) Up in the country near the AR line, it's even worse. The dial-up works sometimes, and is shockingly expensive. To maybe get 2 cellphone bars, we stand on the 2nd floor toilet and lean up toward the window. For 3 bars we have to drive 6 miles.
6) Before we allow the communications giants to proceed in a market/maximum profit-based manner, with no thought to serving either individuals or for the public good, I suggest we hold them to promises previously made and for which they have collected countless millions of customer dollars.
If the past is any indication of the future, we might all consider taking up HAM shortwave radio.
I am one of the estimated now 9% of people severely affected by cell phones and microwave radiations...very painful and/or other microwave emitting technologies. If landlines are taken away, we will have NO way to contact people. While I cannot say I'm lucky whatsoever, I am lucky that of the many ES people who cannot get online at all, I can at least use desktops with no problem. And the numbers who suffer from this are growing exponentially. 5 yrs ago they said "4 and 1/2 %" suffered with it. Now it's doubled. several I've learned of getting it over the past few yrs are young guys in their 20's who were otherwise healthy. I don't know if it comes on to people who are already weakened by something or if it's caused my multiple causes. One guy was a wall St. broker (his father is an MD) and on his laptop and cell phone every waking minute til he became very ill and only then did the cell phone radiation start to bother him. Now he's had to give up his career, time online, cell phone use..all of that. This thing is very real..if you look extensively enough there is plenty of documented research that presented such. It's been a big cover up and you can't just goggle a few things and think you know whether it's real or not. Bright, -before- the towers- vibrant and active people would not have committed suicide over the symptoms this brought on to them (and me) were it not REAL. The pain is
continued....torturous. and document-able. I am documented on it from a test done at a clinic in Texas. Those of you who do not believe either have not lived long enough nor been informed enough to follow all the other things like this that were first denied at large also...from gulf war syndrome to agent orange, to the world being flat and electricity, miracles and so much more. You need to read, read, read and learn about history more , become less naive as to how the gov't, money, health related issues to money makers and more WORK. This is just one more time and thing and issue after so many already in recent history. I don't have latex glove reactions nor do you probably. so are you going to disbelieve those people? everyone's body is so different. per i n sweden faints every time a cell phone is turned on near him. is that visible enough for you? more things than not are invisible to the naked eye. Talk with electrical engineers...few of them have any doubts about the how's and credibility of it. Just why do you think so many poeple, world wide, ...many highly bright and well-educated would all tell the same thing if not true? Doctors have it too. symphony conductors, and a former prime minister. You have not done your homework and better to start looking further and to believe all these folks so that no only can they be eventually helped in some way, but so that you too do not develop this sort of reaction to the ever growing concentration of microwave radiation coursing thru all our bodies from the tower emissions.
got a bit off the point there above..sorry about that.
Please do not take the landlines away ..there are millions of us who must rely solely on them for our communications..other than emails.
I have my land line at home for emergencies. My sister is sick. She tried to call her son, who, did not hear his cell phone. Did not reach him for 3 hours. ALL land phones ring at the same time. So, my sick sister has her land line, and, we all do. I forward my land line to my cell when I will be away for a long time. I want a phone with a hand set to cut down on radiation. Hard to find. Me, like land lines. My cell phone battery JUST died 2 days ago. YIKES