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I don't think anyone in power really recognizes the day of reckoning that's on the horizon w/r/t the copper in America's soil. The telcos are in a managed desc

I don't think anyone in power really recognizes the day of reckoning that's on the horizon w/r/t the copper in America's soil. The telcos are in a managed descent on all of the wiring that could easily deliver Internet. It is too fucking expensive to maintain. So the telcos are instead focusing on acquiring spectrum and hoping to deliver broadband over wireless. But companies like Google, MSFT & others are interfering with all of the spectrum moves of the carriers because they are (reasonably) concerned about WIFI interference that affects their product strategies. So how will this play out? Carriers will need the spectrum to deliver the Internet people want, but non-carriers are going to fight to prevent them from acquiring that spectrum. I think we have a problem where the conflict over spectrum peaks specifically because of the rotting copper plant. It is a very slowly percolating crisis.

revelation 11y ago
Wireless has rather fundamental latency and of course shared medium issues, not convinced at all it will take over from wired as peoples expectations are in lockstep with mobile standards evolution. On the spectrum issue, I suspect we'll see some old users kicked out for wasting space that could enable economical growth in the billions (and indeed net states billions directly, through auctions).
yborg 11y ago
I don't understand this issue of "rotting copper plant". My home has original Illinois Bell wiring. It is 40 years old. My phones (and DSL, when I had it) work fine. One of the things my ever-increasing phone bill is supposed to go to is maintenance on the plant in the ground. The fact that AT&T or Verizon would rather spend this maintenance money on new wireless hardware doesn't automatically make it "too fucking expensive to maintain". This is the line of b.s. used to justify letting the copper plant decay.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- esaym 11y ago
  To really rub it in, after Hurricane Sandy hit the north east 3 or 4 years ago, ATT said it wasn't realistic to replace the damaged copper[1]. They instead handed out wireless gsm devices that could be plugged into your household phone lines and supply "land line" service. This of course (since GSM is lossy), meant fax machines and many other land line data devices stopped working. ATT didn't care. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/22/technology/verizon-wireless-sandy/ http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/22/technology/verizon-wireless-...
- droopybuns 11y ago
  I appreciate that it may feel like everything is fine, but generally the problematic decay is something that takes time to trickle up to the point that you will experience it. When you see the telephone wires on the polls, those are big bundles of pairs that terminate in your neighborhood and your CO. Generally, there are more pairs delivered to your neighborhood than are needed. This is because a short can be difficult to access, so it is helpful to have excess capacity to simply switch the connection for a home to a different pair. But the years of declining land line use and revenues have resulted in cutbacks of folks who do cable repair. When the phone was the only network we had and when long distance calls had electrons flowing directly over thousands of miles of a dedicated circuit, you could justify the cost of repair. But without that, all you have is "switch to a new pair. Hopefully one exists. Move on as quickly as possible to the next customer." It isn't a line of bs. Keep in mind that those phone wires you are looking at are not one super long run of pairs from C.O. to the neighborhood. It's many, many splaced together segments, with varying cable swaps between the c.o. and the destination that can be hard to undo. The historical availability of the network leads people to take its existence for granted. The last time I made the kind of long distance calls that funded these network was over 15 years ago.
esaym 11y ago
> It is a very slowly percolating crisis It is indeed a problem. I don't know how closely ATT is still connected with the government, but I know they (ATT) didn't pay to run copper all over America and now that it has rotted, something needs to be done. Wireless is not an option and even if you can get decent burst speeds, the random lag and jitter makes it a no go for anything critical or business related. I live on the backside of what used to be a small town (< 15k population). Now at a population of 40k+. No joke, there have been several housing additions built behind us in the last 5 years with a combined value of over $500,000,000. There is fiber and cabling running up and down our street to supply TWC and Uverse to these new additions. Yet the only thing our street got from it was ATT upgraded the DSLAM so now we can get 6mbs uverse dsl (I'm at 6k feet) instead of the old 3mbs adsl. That used to be fine, but as I get more and more connected devices, and work strictly from home, 6mbs isn't cutting it. Right now I am looking at getting a second 6mbs connection and load balancing on my router, but ATT tells me I can't have more than one modem per address.
- janesvilleseo 11y ago
  I guess you get a suite number added ;)
  - esaym 11y ago
    I've only initially done the request, but if it takes that, then yes. But given my distance (6k ft), I feel I should already be able to get 12mbs service.

revelation 11y ago

Wireless has rather fundamental latency and of course shared medium issues, not convinced at all it will take over from wired as peoples expectations are in lockstep with mobile standards evolution. On the spectrum issue, I suspect we'll see some old users kicked out for wasting space that could enable economical growth in the billions (and indeed net states billions directly, through auctions).

yborg 11y ago

I don't understand this issue of "rotting copper plant". My home has original Illinois Bell wiring. It is 40 years old. My phones (and DSL, when I had it) work fine. One of the things my ever-increasing phone bill is supposed to go to is maintenance on the plant in the ground. The fact that AT&T or Verizon would rather spend this maintenance money on new wireless hardware doesn't automatically make it "too fucking expensive to maintain". This is the line of b.s. used to justify letting the copper plant decay.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
esaym 11y ago
To really rub it in, after Hurricane Sandy hit the north east 3 or 4 years ago, ATT said it wasn't realistic to replace the damaged copper[1]. They instead handed out wireless gsm devices that could be plugged into your household phone lines and supply "land line" service. This of course (since GSM is lossy), meant fax machines and many other land line data devices stopped working. ATT didn't care. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/22/technology/verizon-wireless-sandy/ http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/22/technology/verizon-wireless-...
droopybuns 11y ago
I appreciate that it may feel like everything is fine, but generally the problematic decay is something that takes time to trickle up to the point that you will experience it. When you see the telephone wires on the polls, those are big bundles of pairs that terminate in your neighborhood and your CO. Generally, there are more pairs delivered to your neighborhood than are needed. This is because a short can be difficult to access, so it is helpful to have excess capacity to simply switch the connection for a home to a different pair. But the years of declining land line use and revenues have resulted in cutbacks of folks who do cable repair. When the phone was the only network we had and when long distance calls had electrons flowing directly over thousands of miles of a dedicated circuit, you could justify the cost of repair. But without that, all you have is "switch to a new pair. Hopefully one exists. Move on as quickly as possible to the next customer." It isn't a line of bs. Keep in mind that those phone wires you are looking at are not one super long run of pairs from C.O. to the neighborhood. It's many, many splaced together segments, with varying cable swaps between the c.o. and the destination that can be hard to undo. The historical availability of the network leads people to take its existence for granted. The last time I made the kind of long distance calls that funded these network was over 15 years ago.

esaym 11y ago

> It is a very slowly percolating crisis It is indeed a problem. I don't know how closely ATT is still connected with the government, but I know they (ATT) didn't pay to run copper all over America and now that it has rotted, something needs to be done. Wireless is not an option and even if you can get decent burst speeds, the random lag and jitter makes it a no go for anything critical or business related. I live on the backside of what used to be a small town (< 15k population). Now at a population of 40k+. No joke, there have been several housing additions built behind us in the last 5 years with a combined value of over $500,000,000. There is fiber and cabling running up and down our street to supply TWC and Uverse to these new additions. Yet the only thing our street got from it was ATT upgraded the DSLAM so now we can get 6mbs uverse dsl (I'm at 6k feet) instead of the old 3mbs adsl. That used to be fine, but as I get more and more connected devices, and work strictly from home, 6mbs isn't cutting it. Right now I am looking at getting a second 6mbs connection and load balancing on my router, but ATT tells me I can't have more than one modem per address.

janesvilleseo 11y ago
I guess you get a suite number added ;)
- esaym 11y ago
  I've only initially done the request, but if it takes that, then yes. But given my distance (6k ft), I feel I should already be able to get 12mbs service.