AT&T sues California in attempt to shut off old phone network
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YetAnotherAnonymousAppellation
Ars Praefectus
How long can AT&T maintain cell service when the power grid shuts down due to a major catastrophe? The landline central offices have diesel generators that can run indefinitely. Unless AT&T adds this capability to enough cell towers to maintain minimal service, leave the wires alone.
Alternatively, they could equip everyone with a cellphone capable of connecting to a satellite network.
Alternatively, they could equip everyone with a cellphone capable of connecting to a satellite network.
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A couple of years ago I moved from an apartment to ATT fiber to one that was only served by ATT Air (their wireless plan). Went from symmetrical gigabit to lucky if I get a single megabit download. Switched a month later to a T-Mobile wireless modem and got acceptable speeds again (still orders of magnitude lower than fiber). An ATT commercial tech in my office told me this is because ATT uses a gigabit backhaul on most towers while T-Mobile uses 10G.
Wireless is obviously not an upgrade from wired, but even then my experience in Texas is ATT will cut every corner possible.
Wireless is obviously not an upgrade from wired, but even then my experience in Texas is ATT will cut every corner possible.
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If your solution for Fiber is really cheaper than the POTS line then why haven't you switched it then? Get your bean counters on this, AT&T?
Oh. Because they would probably be subsidized (Gasp!) lines and California is also very good at being Liberal about that so your ROI is still not good enough?
Oh. Because they would probably be subsidized (Gasp!) lines and California is also very good at being Liberal about that so your ROI is still not good enough?
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I really have no sympathy with ATT here. I am imagining that they let their copper lines deteriorate to such a degree, that if people are still using it, it's for lack of alternatives
The telco in my area, CenturyLink, literally has wires falling off of poles.
The telco in my area, CenturyLink, literally has wires falling off of poles.
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That was a different AT&T. The current AT&T is actually SBC (Southwestern Bell Corporation) wearing it's parent's skinsuit and cosplaying as a century+ org.
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SirThoreth
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In the 2011 San Diego power outage, which took down pretty much the whole city, AT&T and T-Mobile towers lasted, as I recall, around 4-6 hours. The outage struck at 3:38 PM and I recall AT&T and T-Mobile towers failing around 9 PM. I was with Sprint at the time, which could roam on Verizon, and they both went down shortly after midnight.
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Indeed, yes. They have:
https://meincmagazine.com/tech-policy...3-as-service-got-steadily-worse-report-finds/
And the FCC has basically been begging wireline providers to modernize for over a decade:
https://meincmagazine.com/information...to-turn-off-copper-networks-upgrade-to-fiber/
I can see why AT&T wants out of its California COLR requirement. The subsidies it has gotten from CA total less than $10 million, which is chump change at their scale. They don’t need to keep in the state’s good graces to keep any subsidy money flowing: https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/at-and-t
And while I’m talking about AT&T let’s not forget they made up pretend customers to claim Federal subsidies from COVID relief funds:
https://meincmagazine.com/tech-policy...aught-taking-too-much-money-from-fcc-program/
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It's almost a pity AT&T didn't use all those federal network infrastructure dollars to improve their network infrastructure, huh.
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Unironically the same initials as the commission that lets businesses fuck the customer when it's supposed to be doing the opposite.
Seems to me that almost 200,000 people is a fuckton more than "almost no one".
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Depends on location. Most towers have no backup power beyond limited battery based upon my experience living all over the country. No provider does a better job at this than the other. I've lived through a few week long power outages (shit luck with natural disasters...and one man made one), and around 30% of the time, Verizon had a tower backed by a natural gas generator.
It was glorious having internet for the 10 days I was without power, however. (I had a generator to power gadgets and heaters)
I've had AT&T fiber for 6 years, and extended, multi-hour outages have happened 3 times. For the first, a building was literally bombed. For the second, I've no idea what happened, however it took down cellular, fiber, etc. across multiple states. (EDIT: and somehow they fixed the fiber before the power company restored power, even though both power and fiber were on the same poles and knocked out by the same trees...go figure) For the third, an ice storm hit and took out the fiber. Meanwhile, their cellular service has seen dozens or possibly hundreds of outages during that same time frame.
The two things aren't equal. AT&T could make sure every tower has backup power for 2 weeks. They could ensure that they don't oversubscribe to the point where calls can't get through or internet access slows to a stop, but they won't. With fiber, capacity and power are less of an issue because there are fewer points of failure. They don't want to do that. They want to have their cake and also eat it.
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It's poor people and people in rural areas that suffer the most if AT&T gets their way.
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This is incorrect. Quoth the article:
The thing CPUC is preventing AT&T from doing is switching to exclusively wireless service in these areas.
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Hey Republicans... if someone wants to keep using ancient land-line technology, too bad, let's drag them into the future against their will, right?
Go ahead. Tell that to the ICE car/truck crowd.
Edit: missed one letter.
Go ahead. Tell that to the ICE car/truck crowd.
Edit: missed one letter.
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Many years ago an "AT&T Customer Support Memo" circulated that repeatedly told customers to "See Figure 1". A quick search today found it reproduced here.
https://tralfaz.com/2018/03/funnies-att-customer-support-memo/
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Unfortunately, AT&T has their hands in pockets of both sides. AT&T was caught bribing the House Speaker for Illinois to eliminate their carrier of last resort rule just a few years ago.
https://www.courthousenews.com/att-to-pay-23m-for-racketeering-in-illinois/
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AT&T has been trying to weasel out of this for ages. It has claimed for years I have cell coverage at my house, which I very much do not (on a good day the phone might ring, but I've never had a successful conversation more than a minute or two long without it dropping). They just keep jacking up the prices so that eventually they'll squeeze everyone off it. They killed our copper line and our only option for a home phone is flaky VoIP on a data connection that averages about 0.2Mbps (we have Starlink too, which is better, but still flaky). We still have a real phone line for the gate at the bottom of the hill, so people can call us to open it without relying on the nearly non-existent cell coverage. They have now increased the cost of that line, which makes about four local calls a month, to $250/month, and told us it might be $1200/month next year, which to me fundamentally violates their responsibilities as carrier of last resort (we are in California).
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I still remember when Cingular bought AT&T Wireless and was touting how cellular coverage would suddenly be so great because of the additional towers. when the deal finally passed regulations, they went and shut down a lot of towers they said was "redundant" and so coverage was no better and arguably worse in some areas.
All liars to get deals to go through
All liars to get deals to go through
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Or require each cell tower to have full-gassed and working generators, with hefty fines for each generator missing or in not-working condition.
With a clause to allow the state to seize property for unpaid fines, by corporations.
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As someone living in rural CA, ATT can go pound sand.
They offer no wireless coverage in my area, let alone fiber. They have been crystal clear they have no interest to expand here either.
I know numerous people around here who still rely on POTS lines to receive wildfire evacuation alerts. I guess ATT just wants us to go back to ham radio?
They offer no wireless coverage in my area, let alone fiber. They have been crystal clear they have no interest to expand here either.
I know numerous people around here who still rely on POTS lines to receive wildfire evacuation alerts. I guess ATT just wants us to go back to ham radio?
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Their pre-breakup motto: "We don't care, We don't have to ... We're the Phone Company"
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hell centurylink in my state was so bad. the state og gave isp protection. but after multi hurricanes and such. centurylink never replace or fix most of there lines. it was so bad the state void the isp protection( sudo monopoly). multi isp come in and install new fiber lines /cable lines.
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I work for a municipal government in CA, and I can tell you from experience that AT&T is letting their copper lines degrade and refusing to repair them regardless of the requirements. We have many properties that still rely on analog phone service (such as fire stations, fire/police dispatch, recreation centers) and we have been having lines fail left and right and repair tickets made with AT&T go nowhere. They close the tickets and the lines still don't work.
And, of course, they haven't built a replacement wired network. The only option is to switch to cellular-based VoIP. We have a hosted VoIP system, but we need something that works even if there is a network outage at the property.
And, of course, they haven't built a replacement wired network. The only option is to switch to cellular-based VoIP. We have a hosted VoIP system, but we need something that works even if there is a network outage at the property.
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All these telecommunication companies are trying really hard to be finance companies, but they provide telecommunication systems that are safety critical.
Huh, imagine if there was a government in this USA country that did not let them be finance companies.
Huh, imagine if there was a government in this USA country that did not let them be finance companies.
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"Ironically, notwithstanding general business hostility toward much regulation, only those industries whose principal players generally desired regulatory oversight got deregulation."--Robert Britt Horwitz, The Irony of Regulatory Reform: The Deregulation of American Telecommunications (1989) vii.
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POTS has been a walking corpse for 20 years now. The plant has been re-engineered to roughly the maximum economic level to keep it relevant with xDSL but that was always a losing battle to cable, FTTP, and cellular data - all of whom can handily outperform it. The few data applications that have any future seem to be last 100 yards like g.fast whose raison d'être is to skip negotiating access to re-engineer MDU/MTU premises, not sustaining continuous copper loop between the customer premise and the CO.
Of course AT&T wants to force-decommission the copper network in locations where they can't run fiber at a per-premise cost they like. Every carrier does. Happened to my folks in rural AR - AT&T all but refused to fix the lines and offered a deeply-discounted flat-rate cell phone for years ... likely striking the address from their POTS qualification records.
Short of the instinct to preserve the copper PSTN where it still exists, there doesn't seem to be a plan to sustain it other than force ILECs to keep it around. Which can work in the short term, but there's a shortage of NOS components to keep it running and the revenues it generates are increasingly a pittance against its costs.
I appreciate the reluctance to shift to wireless; here in DFW the LTE/5G bands go almost immediately to sh_t whenever there's a power outage (everyone's gotta keep binging on Netflix) and we don't have the coverage gaps that the areas in question do. I've seen the 5G sites that have been rolled out - an 8 meter tower every 500 meters - judging by the near-total absence of equipment housings those will probably be lucky to make it 30 minutes in a blackout. Not sure how the larger LTE sites fare - likely better but they're hardly like wireline COs with enormous UPSs and diesel gensets provisioned for 2 weeks' runtime (the old-school variety anyway) run-tested on the regular.
And fiber rollouts are expensive enough in suburbia/exurbia to the point shareholders start to complain. Took a state initiative and the local electrical co-op to get fiber to my folks house and that was a major push for the co-op; post-rollout, new installs require tender put out to contractors and I gather maintenance isn't exactly swift.
So what does a future look like without the copper PSTN in places that still rely on it? Fiber deployment some how, some way everywhere that wants it? A more robust wireless network with good coverage and a fear of God mandate for X days no-BS runtime on local UPS/generator power?
Of course AT&T wants to force-decommission the copper network in locations where they can't run fiber at a per-premise cost they like. Every carrier does. Happened to my folks in rural AR - AT&T all but refused to fix the lines and offered a deeply-discounted flat-rate cell phone for years ... likely striking the address from their POTS qualification records.
Short of the instinct to preserve the copper PSTN where it still exists, there doesn't seem to be a plan to sustain it other than force ILECs to keep it around. Which can work in the short term, but there's a shortage of NOS components to keep it running and the revenues it generates are increasingly a pittance against its costs.
I appreciate the reluctance to shift to wireless; here in DFW the LTE/5G bands go almost immediately to sh_t whenever there's a power outage (everyone's gotta keep binging on Netflix) and we don't have the coverage gaps that the areas in question do. I've seen the 5G sites that have been rolled out - an 8 meter tower every 500 meters - judging by the near-total absence of equipment housings those will probably be lucky to make it 30 minutes in a blackout. Not sure how the larger LTE sites fare - likely better but they're hardly like wireline COs with enormous UPSs and diesel gensets provisioned for 2 weeks' runtime (the old-school variety anyway) run-tested on the regular.
And fiber rollouts are expensive enough in suburbia/exurbia to the point shareholders start to complain. Took a state initiative and the local electrical co-op to get fiber to my folks house and that was a major push for the co-op; post-rollout, new installs require tender put out to contractors and I gather maintenance isn't exactly swift.
So what does a future look like without the copper PSTN in places that still rely on it? Fiber deployment some how, some way everywhere that wants it? A more robust wireless network with good coverage and a fear of God mandate for X days no-BS runtime on local UPS/generator power?
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Not sure what hurts them worse, boycotting them...or signing up for landline service.
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zero sympathy. i have paid for my pots service for ... well darn near 35 years. had isdn when that started, then dsl, up until about 4 years ago when my landline, and consequently dsl, stopped working entirely. no dial tone. dsl so intermittent as to be useless. they still owe me 3 years of refund for that garbage. i now have spectrum (no fiber in my neighborhood) and am happy with that, and use att cellular as a backup cause some of my systems need that.
but att NEVER owned their lame 'maintenance' of the pots, would routinely make me talk to several people with zero info before saying 'yeah, seems like there's an issue--when are you home for a service tech to visit'... which would always result in service techs saying 'it's something upstream, in the central switch'..... yeah, no s--it. same old bs year after year and still no refund. so. sure, let em let that copper network rot, but they should have to refund all users for the garbage 'service' they perpetrated on us all for years--AND gaslighted us into thinking it was just a little issue on our lines ('are you sure it's not something inside your house, sir? any new phone jacks installed..?'.. like ROFL, are you f-ing kidding?? lame as f.).
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When I lived in Vancouver, BC (an area with major earthquake potential), I maintained a landline exactly for this reason. There is no guarantee that the landlines will survive any major quake, but the chances that the cell network will survive is near zero IMO.
Now that I live out in the back-of-beyond where the wires are all on poles and the quake potential is infinitesimal, I've gone cellular to avoid the inevitable landline outages from wind and falling trees.
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