The end of the PSTN 2018 report to the FCC

[v2win]

So I was trying to reach the end of the Internet the other day and I stumbled across this article about the ILEC 's and the TAC proposing to end PSTN support by 2018.

It got me to thinking how many people still have home phone lines? I still have one but its from my cable company and I also have a teleworker set but its off of my office PBX with a PRI and SIP lines.

So I am wondering where is the demark on the PSTN in the article? Is it all the copper lines to homes are they only going to support fiber and wireless?

http://transition.fcc.gov/presentations/06292011/2010_06_29-presentation.pdf

Also I was looking the list of members of the working group and thought there  isnt any bias there.

[v2win]

This also got me to thinking the ILEC's are required by the FCC to share the copper lines with CLEC's and RLEC's but they aren't required to share fiber so what do?

[brantn]

It will all transition into sip based switching so any means of internet would be the demarc. A rlec that I know has already made a huge transition that way and I am assuming most are as the increased flexibilty and the amount of savings to be gained. There is still a lot of copper infrastructure especially in rural areas but you will see dsl modems and atas to replace standard demarcs in those locations until the miles of copper are replaced with fiber, ethernet services, or cable service.

[v2win]

It will cost lots of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

How are they planning on getting broadband to businesses in that time frame without breaking the bank.

If they are planning to abandon the copper I know 99 percent of my customers don't have fiber to the premises.

[Mattmayn]

That is the case for a majority of the country. Comcast is giving our local carrier a lot of problems (taking their revenue) and they are installing miles of fiber. Service isn't bad for a cable company.

[v2win]

I agree but I think 2018 is a bit optmistic.

I am still working on PBX's with 15 to 20 year old software that don't know what a PRI is much less SIP.

[NTEDave]

In the UK BT are upgrading the exchanges to IP (21CN) with ATAs or Media Converters back to copper.

There is Fibre to the Premises being rolled out but they are concentrating mostly on Fibre to the cabinet for homes.

I've quite a few customers with Fibre into their Buildings but the majority all run on copper.

I think copper will be around for quite a while yet!

[brantn]

As do I but there has already been a major change is the PSTN infrastructure of moving away from the MDFs with a DMS that will fill 3 houses down to ip based systems that fill one standard rack. You will not get rid of on premise copper for a long time but that is where the ata comes into play. I think 2018 is optimistic but hey first flying car is hitting the road 11 years late so maybe 2029 is what they meant.

[Chakara]

  To me, the interesting part of the equation is the rural areas where broadband is not available or not good.  The government funded a lot of small ISP's a few years ago to get broadband to these areas with some success - however the service hasn't improved as the rest of the world did.  My sister is happy to have a 256k DSL.  Really.

  To me the only solution for these folks is some form of wireless - but who is going to invest in a tower/fiber/etc that is only going to cover 10 homes.  Better solutions over long range, already existing copper, is going to be the fix.  The tech probably is already out there, but nobody is upgrading the POP's to support it.

  So here we sit....

-Chak