The end of POTS?

[dsk]

When internet are out, the voice over internet solutions are out, quite easy to understand.
When the power are out, and comes back, internet may need quite long time to come up. (Not that easy to understand)
If the POTS are bad, hopefully mobile works. Here (in Norway) mobile network works at least 4 hours after power goes down. Some kind of a mobile to regular phone adapter may solve it, but remember the adapter needs battery backup to work when the power are gone.

All this makes it more difficult for the common man, and you may always blame some others.

dsk

By the way, way Comcast, I have surfed a little around and Callcentric seems to be a better choice for me, Actually the pay pr call solution is so good that I use it for calls to POTS phones here in Norway! And I got a New York number for free!  This even made it possible to put up a Google voice account forwarded to this number, and free calls to US/Canada.  (Even when $0.0198 are so close to 0 so its nearly no point to use G.V.)

dsk

[GusHerb]

Got an AT&T tech out today. Found the issue in the F1, swapped it out and our line is quiet as a mouse again!
One thing I love is that we have a very good set of I&R techs around here.

[AE_Collector]

F1 = Field 1 or first pair of cable leaving the CO. The circuit usually or at least frequently will go through two or more cables between terminals thus the possibility of F2, F3 cable pairs enroute to its final destination.

Here we never used that terminology referring to cables as the CO cable and FX cable. When on occasion there were more than two different cables then things fell apart with us referring to second or even third FX pairs.

Terry

[trainman]

POTS is dying. Article in todays Ney York Times. Verizon refused to replace the landline to an area affected by Sandy. Replaced with some wireless service Residents used to the reliability of the landline are complaining. I don't fault them.

[Greg G.]

POTS is dying. Article in todays Ney York Times. Verizon refused to replace the landline to an area affected by Sandy. Replaced with some wireless service Residents used to the reliability of the landline are complaining. I don't fault them.

Apparently the complaints were loud enough to make them back down:  http://tinyurl.com/kgx268g  I miss the old Bell System.

Verizon Backing Off Plans for Wireless Home Phones
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Published: September 12, 2013


After facing numerous complaints from residents of Fire Island, Verizon has backed away from its plan to use a wireless device to replace traditional phone service in areas where it would rather not repair its old copper wires.

After Hurricane Sandy, Verizon asked state regulators in New York for permission to substitute Voice Link, a home phone service that carries calls on a cellular network, for what it refers to as "plain old telephone service." The first place in the state it tried broad use of Voice Link was on the west end of Fire Island, a resort community on the Atlantic Ocean that incurred heavy damage in the late October storm.

Verizon had hoped to use Fire Island as an example of how Voice Link could be installed in other areas of the state where its network of copper wires was damaged by storms or deemed too costly to repair or maintain. The regulators said they would monitor the results and decide later this year.

But Verizon did not wait for the final results. It conceded defeat this week and said it would start laying fiber-optic cable that would restore home phone service and Internet access.

Edward P. Romaine, the supervisor of the town of Brookhaven, said he was "delighted" that Verizon had been "forced into" offering an alternative to Voice Link. "I dare say there are very few residents of Fire Island that would prefer Voice Link," he said.

The company also withdrew its request to the state Public Service Commission for permission to use Voice Link as a permanent substitute for traditional home phone service elsewhere in the state.

"What we're basically telling the commission is we're not going to pursue the stuff that we were pursuing," said Tom Maguire, Verizon's senior vice president for national operations support. "We're going to go back to the day before Sandy."

The Voice Link experiment was watched closely by consumer advocates because it was seen as a test of the obligations that traditional phone-service providers have to their customers. The advocates fear that acceptance of Voice Link will give Verizon an incentive to neglect its copper lines, which are expensive to maintain.

Verizon and AT&T have told federal and state regulators that the demise of "plain old" phone service is inevitable, as more Americans rely on cellphones and demand faster Internet connections than copper wires can provide.

Indeed, Verizon is not abandoning Voice Link. The company intends to continue offering it as a substitute for traditional service in Mantoloking, N.J., and other communities that have been hit hard by storms.

Some Mantoloking residents have complained about Verizon's decision not to restore their old phone lines after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc there. But the company said that people in Mantoloking, unlike the residents of Fire Island, have an alternative: they can get phone service and Internet access from Comcast, the local cable provider.

That answer did not satisfy Stefanie A. Brand, the director for the Division of Rate Counsel in New Jersey. A representative of utility consumers, Ms. Brand said Mantoloking residents should not have to buy a bundled service from the cable company to get home phone service that is not wireless.

"Verizon is the provider of last resort in New Jersey," Ms. Brand said, "so they have to offer customers a basic telephone service option, and there is no telephone service option available to the customers in Mantoloking."

AARP has called on the Federal Communications Commission and New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities to investigate Verizon's use of Voice Link in Mantoloking. The organization argued that dependable, regulated phone service is a "lifeline" for residents, especially older ones, when a storm like Hurricane Sandy hits.

Jim Dieterle, the state director for AARP in New Jersey, called Voice Link a "third-rate" alternative. He said state officials should not accept less than what Verizon is doing on Fire Island. "Why would they do one thing in New York and then not in New Jersey? We're not second-class citizens," he said. "I don't think our governor would appreciate being treated in a less admirable way."

A version of this article appears in print on September 13, 2013, on page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Verizon Backing Off Plans For Wireless Home Phones.

[trainman]

t would be nice if someone else could purchase all the nations landline system and run it. That way it wouldn't be a burden to all the  providers.

Tell me why we need competion in the utility business? Their sole job is to provide a reliable service. We don't need funny laws and schemes to buy the same services and have company x offer it for 10% less than company Y when they provide the same product.

[Greg G.]

t would be nice if someone else could purchase all the nations landline system and run it. That way it wouldn't be a burden to all the  providers.

Tell me why we need competion in the utility business? Their sole job is to provide a reliable service. We don't need funny laws and schemes to buy the same services and have company x offer it for 10% less than company Y when they provide the same product.

The "why" is pretty much why a lot of things aren't as they should be, greed and ignorance.  In this case, greed on the part of equipment manufacturers and service providers who wanted a slice of the Bell System's lucrative pie and would do anything to get it.  Ignorance on the part of Supreme Court rulings that helped them get it.

Get a copy of The Rape of Ma Bell, you can find it on Amazon for cheap.

[twocvbloke]

Seems BT have inadvertently ended our POTS today, cos the phoneline is dead as a doornail, no dial tone, no incoming calls, no power to even make tones or turn on the Monitor function on that BT Relate 200 I got several weeks back (at about the same time as my AE80), just completely dead, there was some work going on at the pole just up the street, so I think they have moved some wires in the spaghetti bundle which has inadvertently disconnected ours, leaving the house without phone or ADSL (I'm using mobile broadband at the moment)...

Can't report the fault to BT directly cos we're with Primus, and I can't report it to Primus cos they apparently aren't aware of the 24 hour society that we live in today, and they're gone for the night, with no 24hr faults reporting line available...

Shame I don't have a tone generator, a probe, one of them distance to the end of the pairs things, and a key to open up the junction box, I could have fixed it myself by now...

[twocvbloke]

Well, our line got fixed yesterday, turned out the fault was basically a snapped wire, the copper had snapped inside the sheathing in the junction box just up the street, presumably from being pulled out and pushed back so many times that it just fractured and ultimately let go, but the Openreach engineer (as technically, BT themselves don't operate the lines now, it's Openreach who do, even though they're a BT business!!!) traced the fault with his line fault tracer (fancy piece of kit that, I want one!!) and re-terminated the wires...

He said that he didn't like the way it's all wired up round here, it's all jelly crimps and zip ties, where in the more modern installs, they use Krone IDC strips in the junctions, making it easier to connect up, trace, repair and rewire, without interfering with other lines, wouldn't be hard to retrofit either, but, it's cost-saving measures that prevent repairs and upgrades like that... 

[George Knighton]

Tell me why we need [competition] in the utility business?

We no longer have the stomach or the tax dollars necessary to regulate what amounts to a Crown corporation.

[AE_Collector]

Hey, George is back! Good to hear from you again.

Terry

[GusHerb]

Our line is all messed up again  now humming worse then I've ever heard! The answering machine has given me a idea of when it started. A message was left at 2:18 PM and it was clear, then another message after that reveals the raucous ground hum that we all know so well. Unfortunately it was deleted before I caught the time.

I love that AT&T allows you to open a trouble report online for Home Phone. Wish they'd do this for Uverse too! Guess having them spend money on script readers in India is cheaper then people filling out a lot of false alarm tickets... 
Wish comcast would allow you to open tickets online too...

[Greg G.]

Got an AT&T tech out today. Found the issue in the F1, swapped it out and our line is quiet as a mouse again!

F1 = Field 1 or first pair of cable leaving the CO.

Terry

Here I thought the friendly phone company tech fixed your F1 handset!  Silly me!

[poplar1]

My pet peeve with AT&T repair is that they will wait until the outside cables have dried out before dispatching a tech. So the trouble appears to have cleared on its own. If the line is working when he gets there, then the customer is billed about $75 for a FOK (Found OK)  even if the tech does nothing.

Of course, if you pay an extra $8 per month for Inside wire maintenance/trouble isolation then you aren't charged for the visit. Not that they fix the problem.

[Contempra]

Some providers offer this plan.. yes David.. I have it. I mean a maintenance/trouble plan Inside the house..