The end of POTS?

[Phonesrfun]

I am my own inside wire technician.

[Jim Stettler]

The best deal I was ever offered on inside wiring maint. was $.01 a month. I turned it down because I had wired all the jacks and It would be to much work to move boxes of phones for "workman access" if there was ever a problem. I never did have any line problems while I lived there.
On the other hand I have always paid for line maintence in apts. because I didn't install the wiring and Didn't have access to to it.
JMO,
Jim

[GusHerb]

The loud hum (as loud as the dial tone) disappeared as quickly as it came. Probably something to do with the CO (if not related to water, and the low of 18 we had that night). I've seen weird hums come and go like that with nothing ever being done to fix it.

OTOH I think the line at my mothers shop has a hum now. Doesn't seem loud enough to call it in but I'm gonna check with a better handset. Is AT&T playing some kind of joke on me? Musical Lines? (instead of musical chairs)
I get frustrated with POTS because it hums, crackles, has static etc and I get frustrated with VoIP because it doesn't function like POTS. Guess there's no happy medium for me. 

[Phonesrfun]

Get 2 tin cans, 2 buttons, and a length of string.  Maybe you will get better quality audio.

[McHeath]

POTS continues along here, one big happy copper family.

Every year or two we have the AT&T techs out, they find us another clean pair back to the CO, and we use it until it gets fuzzy.  They say that hardly anyone in my hood is still using POTS, so they have lots of wires to choose from now. 

Isn't there still a law here in the US that the phone companies have to provide POTS?  Or something like that?

[twocvbloke]

Isn't there still a law here in the US that the phone companies have to provide POTS?  Or something like that?

If there is, I'm sure they're quietly working on getting rid of it so they can pull up the copper to sell as scrap to china...

[GusHerb]

That hum came back, and was coming back every night that it would go below freezing! Line tech came out today and cleared a mouse nest out of the pedestal across the street from our block, and repaired the section they chewed on.

[GusHerb]

POTS continues along here, one big happy copper family.

Every year or two we have the AT&T techs out, they find us another clean pair back to the CO, and we use it until it gets fuzzy.  They say that hardly anyone in my hood is still using POTS, so they have lots of wires to choose from now.  

Isn't there still a law here in the US that the phone companies have to provide POTS?  Or something like that?

Yes there certainly is, if there wasn't they would've done away with POTS by now. I wish when they do away with POTS that the infrastructure be replaced with fiber but that seems like a long shot seeing as how AT&T and Verizon have pulled the wool over everyones eyes.

[Phonesrfun]

Looks like its coming....The end of POTS, that is....

This is an article from Fox News.  It was posted in the TCI and VOIP Listserves by Steve Cichorsky.

The link to the Fox article is:


http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/11/20/fcc-announces-plans-to-upgrade-century-old-phone-system/?intcmp=obnetwork


The text of it follows:


Move over, Ma Bell.

About a third of Americans use iPhone or Android-based cellular phones, and another third place digital phone calls through their cable provider, Vonage or others. But that last third of Americans still rely on the century-old network of copper wires that make up the backbone of the country's communication system. And they're long overdue for an upgrade.

"The public switched telephone network will be shut off some day. The question is when will that be," an FCC official told FoxNews.com.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Tuesday announced plans to expedite the largest change to the nation's phone system in decades -- a move away from the aging, circuit-switched system that sends those analog signals over copper cables to a modern, digital, IP-based network that largely relies on fiber optics.


'This is what I have called the Fourth Network Revolution, and it is a good thing.'

- FCC chairman Tom Wheeler

Once tests prove that the new system works in localized trials, the digital phone network will be rolled out nationwide. And ultimately, the copper wires that have linked families and farm houses for over a century will be turned off.

"This is what I have called the Fourth Network Revolution, and it is a good thing," FCC chairman Tom Wheeler wrote in a blog post. "The way forward is to encourage technological change while preserving the attributes of network services that customers have come to expect ... we have listened, and now it is the time to act. In this, I agree with my commission colleagues."

The copper wires that make up the public switched telephone network carry POTS signals, short for plain old telephone system. And even cellular calls still touch and depend on all that old copper.

In January, the FCC is expected to begin "a diverse set of experiments" in order to figure out how to transition to the new IP-based system, a transition certain to take years. The initial experiments will likely include regional tests of an IP-based system to ascertain reliability, scalability and so on, an FCC spokesman told FoxNews.com.

The commission's technological advisory committee set a goal of 2018, which is likely too ambitious, he said. But expect localized trials as soon as 2015.

The upgrade may mean introducing the age of video calling to landlines. An IP landline network, unlike current copper wires can handle much larger amounts of data that could be used to make video calls.

"Our current infrastructure has served us well for almost a century but it no longer meets the needs of America's consumers," AT&T's Jim Cicconi said in a response published online. "The transition to broadband and IP services that has already begun is driven by consumers who are moving to the Internet and choosing to connect in ways not imagined just a decade ago."

Companies like Verizon and AT&T currently control the existing landline phone network and are subject to strict rules by the FCC to protect consumers. It is unclear how the planned changes will affect the telephone companies as the FCC has historically been opposed to classifying broadband Internet as a telecom service.

"The way forward is to encourage technological change while preserving the attributes of network services that customers have come to expect," Wheeler wrote. "History has shown that new networks catalyze innovation, investment, ideas, and ingenuity."

[southernphoneman]

this brings me to a question and I know that this is on the forum somewhere but I can t find it. is there a way that our vintage rotary phones would still work on the new system? Gregg

[twocvbloke]

is there a way that our vintage rotary phones would still work on the new system? Gregg

Probably through the same ATAs they use for phone service on cable lines over there, though the best way is just to buy a Panasonic system and connect that to the ATA....

That or start a petition to deny the dismantling of the copper networks, cos it's too reliable to get rid of, cos in the event of a power failure, fibre-op is dead in the water if you have no backup power, whereas copper lines keep running so long as the exchange has power (battery or generator-supplied), keeping traditional phones working when everything else is not...

[Greg G.]

IP-based network, what fun! I had one for a while through Comcast. Not only did the phone service go down when the power was down (it uses a modem that needs power from the regular household power supply), but the phone service didn't function even if just the internet was down (the modem uses the internet).

[Phonesrfun]

this brings me to a question and I know that this is on the forum somewhere but I can t find it. is there a way that our vintage rotary phones would still work on the new system? Gregg

Not by just plugging it in.  The plug-in to any new IP based system will not be a simple tip and ring DC loop.  The only way old phones will work on any IP based system, even those in existence today, is through an Analog Terminal Adapter (ATA), or sometimes referred to as a special purpose router.  Those who are on Vonage, or with cable based phones are already using these ATA's in order to plug in their old phones.  It is likely that some day as IP based phones become more and more prevalent, the makers of the ATA's won't bother with the additional cost to have a port to plug in a legacy POTS phone.  In fact there won't be as much of a demand for an ATA at all.  THe "phone" device of the future will have its own plug.  The plug for my IP based phone at work is the same as the network cable my computer plugs into.  In fact it plugs into the same network as my office computer.

Some day in the future, the only way to even demonstrate older phones will be to have either an ATA so you can connect a POTS phone to an IP system, or get yourself a Panasonic (or similar) PBX such as a 308 or 616 that you can connect several phones to and call and ring back and forth.

It should also be mentioned that there is an IP based Telephone Collector's C*Net that you will see referred to from time to time.  I am on it, and several others are too.  It is a semi-private IP system where we as collectors can connect our old phones, switchboards and key systems to, and call each other up.  For that all you need is an old phone, high speed internet service, and an ATA that is configured for C*Net.

[dsk]

Not only the end of POTS
More and more of my friends just drops everything except the mobile, and yes it is more expensive with POTS, and even with IP telephony.




dsk

[McHeath]

Ah yes, the ever touted "The way forward" lingo.

Never heard that line before, have we?

Certainly I don't dismiss the benefits of free long distance calls that I can place, and talk to people thousands of miles away as long as I like.  (provided I pay for an internet connection)  Video calls, texting, the ability to voice call from anywhere, it's all good.  Of course it's not all that reliable, and there's the rub.

"The way forward" seems to mean that we get a lot of nice new things but have to give up one old thing, reliability.  A curious compromise, but that seems to be the mood of the era. 

"It's shiny!  It's new!  It's fancy!  It's got a 5.27" screen with mega-retina uber-wunnerful resolution and a 2 bazillion ghz deci-quad core processor!  Oh, uh, and it's fragile and breaks easily, don't drop it, and uh, never place a critical call on it that you actually need to get through on.  Also, you'll need to update stuff on it endlessly to keep it working, and in a couple of years -if it lasts that long- it probably won't work well anymore, what with the newer OS protocols we have coming down the pike and the cheap components we sourced from the lowest bidder in China.  But hey, it's shiny!"

What was the old standard, 99.999% uptime on the POTS phones?  They won't even tell us what we get these days with our cell phone service, and we all know why.