On Tuesday, the FCC created a new task force to examine AT&T's Nov. 7 request for the agency to "facilitate the transition" from the "TDM-based, circuit-switch network" to a wired and wireless IP future. (See AT&T Puts Up $14B to Boost Broadband.)
Incumbent carriers are subject to a 1913 Carrier Of Last Resort (COLR) rule that requires them to provide every American household with access to a landline. Verizon says it has gotten deals from some states to drop those requirements; AT&T, meanwhile, has urged regulators to update the rules. (See 4G Kills the Copper Plant.)
At a broadband-focused Senate hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R, Ill.) asked FCC commissioners about the "end of the copper era" and how the agency plans to deal with it.
"Those kind of regulations no longer make sense in an all-IP world," stated FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, while noting that the agency will need to work to ensure that people can get 911 services over their Internet-based communications platforms.
Fellow commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel noted that a third of all American households use wireless as their only phone service.
Given that in many states (like say NY) Verizon is NOT the COLR of the entire state, why would this be on a state by state basis. I can see them having COLR requirements for where they are the COLR but why would they be required to put in FiOS in Rochester (for example) which is a Frontier property?
Now, you could be trying to say that they must implement FiOS in all Verizon properties in NY. Again, odd as they don't even have DSL in all properties.
But what I think you really mean is that E911 and COLR are requirements independent of the technology used to deliver them. Back to my comment on the upstate NY flood and Dan's 4G replacement what that would mean is that in that case wireless outages would have the same fines as wireline outages do today.
ATT and Verizon should be reqired to meet all the requirements of Copper rules including universal service, provider of last resort and 911 services for every household the states they serve wtih fiber optic networks.
Especially if they insist on working for legislation that block munilcipal network construction. To do anything less will make the rural United States a thrid world nation in the communication area.
Worse, there is a vicious cycle between the telecoms and the electric utilities.
One thing that is holding down electric reliability is insufficient monitoring and control in the distribution system. Part of the reason for that is lack of low cost, low data rate, low latency, high reliability, easily deployed communications. 3G wireless would be a great fit in a lot of these applications, except for the reliability part. And one reason for inadequate reliability is that NodeB/antenna sites have unreliable powering. Which would be more reliable if utilities could upgrade monitoring and control to reduce outage times.
Mobile operators are supposedly working to break this cycle, but breaking negatives perceptions in the utilities is going to be hard.
re: "Why are cable and telcos under separate rules at all nowadays?"
Yet another thought-provoking question. I think the answer is that "we've always done it that way." Which is a horrible answer but perhaps the FCC can get their heads around the idea that these companies, though on different infrastructure, operate the same way and provide the same services.
I think the answer is also "because telcos spend more on lobbying than it takes to feed and clothe most of the third World." Cable spends a lot, too, but when you lobby differently you get different results.
For sure, POTS isn't perfect, copper can still get flooded etc, etc.
But at the moment there's not even a mandated backup period on cellsites, carriers say it will cost hundreds of millions to upgrade. Sprint and others went to court to stop the FCC mandate after Katrina.
Meanwhile, its not even clear how 911 rules apply to some of the very latest IP comms systems.
At the moment, the end of the copper era means the end of clear rules on what kind of failsafes our communications systems should have.
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