Gary Audin recently published as paper at Webtorials entitled “Can the PSTN be Shut Down?“. In this paper, he takes a rather extensive look at the proposal submitted to the FCC last December to eventually retire the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) and POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) over the next several years.
As Gary points out in the introduction, “VoIP phone services keep growing. The cable companies, for example Comcast, are competing very effectively against the traditional legacy carriers for voice services. Pay phones keep disappearing. Mobile voice call volume keeps growing.
“We will eventually see the PSTN retire and POTS disappear. Wireless and broadband connections proliferate while the old copper pair connections offered by the Telcos are turned off, as many as 700,000 lines per month. The trend is all downhill for the PSTN and its legacy operation. This however does not mean the PSTN will close soon or without any challenges.”
We couldn’t agree more with Gary that the days of the assumption of having access to a minimum of two 26-gauge copper pairs are quickly evaporating. Ever-increasingly, consumers and businesses are opting for cellular-only connectivity and/or other PANS (Pretty Amazing New Stuff). For instance, one of our colleagues recently opted to ditch land lines in favor of cellular phones plus “Magic Jack” service.
And the insignificance of POTS (and, by extension, DSL service) to the service providers themselves is becoming increasingly self-evident. Steve likes to go sailing on a lake in semi-rural South Carolina. But, at the same time, he also was quite interested in having high-speed Internet service available.
As it turns out, none of the “usual suspects” for service could find records for the address in question. So after calling AT&T, Sprint, and two or three additional companies, he gave up for the time being. The mystery was solved on the next trip when a “BellSouth” pedestal was discovered two houses down.
Good news and bad news. It was indeed established who the COLR (Carrier of Last Resort) was for the residence. However, when inquiring about DSL service, Steve was informed that a) the distance was too far to carry DSL over the existing plant and b) there would not ever be an upgrade to DSL. If a high-speed service were ever to be available, it would be over a new fiber plant. Maybe. Someday.
We would love to hear your comments on this at the above-referenced link. Next time we’ll also share some comments that we have already received on this topic.
