Tag Archives: telephone copper

The Consequences of Shutting Copper Networks

AT&T and Verizon (and now the newly purchased Frontier) have continued with their big push to shut down copper networks. There are good reasons to finally walk away from this obsolete technology. Copper networks are largely far past the end of economic life and are rotting on the poles. Vandalism is rampant since the price of copper is making it attractive for people to rip down copper for the resale value. A large majority of customers who have a good alternative have fled the copper networks, so there are fewer people each year on the remaining copper networks.

But there are still good policy reasons for not tearing down the networks. For many rural households, a telephone landline is the only way to reliably reach 911 or to make the daily calls needed to connect to doctors, banks, and other necessities of daily life. The FCC and state regulators have all said they support tearing down copper as long as customers have an equivalent alternative for voice. And that’s where the rub comes. The Internet is full of stories of people who have lost their copper with no alternative available. Unless a telco is replacing copper with fiber, they generally tell customers to change to wireless broadband. Everybody who lives in rural America knows that cell coverage is poor or nonexistent in much of rural America. But the lack of cell coverage doesn’t seem to be a deterrent for the big telcos that want to get rid of the copper.

People can always change to Starlink, assuming they live in a place where they don’t have to cut down a bunch of trees or put up an expensive tall pole to receive service. But this means replacing a $30 landline bill with a $130 Starlink bill. Even then, a customer has to be sophisticated enough to subscribe to a WiFi calling service through a web connection and worry about losing 911 when power goes out.

I recently read an article on Medium by Bruce Kushnick that points out another motivation for the big telcos to tear down copper. When a telco eliminates the last copper infrastructure in a state, it is theoretically no longer subject to Title II traditional regulation. The FCC and courts have rules that broadband and voice services carried across all other technologies are subject to Title I regulation as an information service.

This is a big deal that is not being talked about. Carriers subject to Title II regulation are required to offer just and reasonable rates. Title II carriers are subject to strict rules about protecting customer information. Title II carriers are subject to all sorts of rules for things like having specific rules about when and how a customer can be disconnected for nonpayment. Title II carriers are subject to mandatory obligations to interconnect with other carriers.

If a telco can change to become regulated by Title I rules, all of these regulatory obligations would go away. If a big telco could get every single customer off copper in a state, they’d have a good case to make that they are no longer subject to any Title II regulation. I’m positive that this is where AT&T and Verizon are headed. They would probably have to petition a state to make the change, but in most states they will win their argument.

An argument that can be made that smaller telco that has fully converted to fiber could petition to walk away from Title II regulation today. I haven’t heard of anybody who has tried this because there are still advantages to sticking with Title II regulation. Small telcos aren’t ready to cavalierly walk away from the ability to interconnect with other carriers. Many small telcos don’t want to lose the ability to participate in various subsidy programs funded by the Universal Service Fund or from similar State funds.

But if AT&T or Verizon are successful in walking away from Title II regulations, even if it’s only in a few states, then I expect we’ll see smaller telcos doing the same thing, particularly if the FCC guts the High Cost as it is contemplating. It’s odd that the whole Title II regulatory scheme is so closely aligned with copper, but that alignment is going to be challenged when the big telcos no longer have any copper.

A New Technology for MDU Broadband

A Canadian company recently announced a new device that promises the ability to deliver gigabit speeds inside of MDUs using existing copper or coaxial wiring. The company is Positron Access Solutions and I talked to their CTO and president, Pierre Trudeau at the recent Broadband Communities event in Washington DC. Attached is an article and a PowerPoint talking about the new technology.

The technology is built upon a framework of the G.hn standards. You might remember this as the standard supporting powerline carrier that was used before WiFi to distribute broadband around the home using the electrical wiring in the home. G.hn over powerline was a sufficient technology when broadband speeds were slow but didn’t scale up to support faster broadband speeds. In thinking back, I recall that the biggest limitation was that there are dozens of different types of electrical wires used in homes over the last century and it was hard to have a technology that worked as promised over the various sizes and types of in-home wiring.

Positron has been around for many years and manufactures IP PBX systems and DSL extenders. They are referring to the new technology as GAM, which I take to mean G.hn Access Network.

The company says that the technology will deliver a gigabit signal about 500 feet over telephone copper wires and over 4,000 feet on coaxial cable. Large MDUs delivering the technology using telephone copper might require spacing a few devices throughout parts of the network.

The technology operates on unused frequency bands on the copper cables. For example, on telephone copper, the technology can coexist on a telephone wire that’s already carrying telephone company voice. On coaxial cable, the Positron device can coexist with satellite TV from DirecTV or Dish Networks but can’t coexist with a signal from a traditional cable company.

Positron says they are a natural successor to G.Fast which has never gotten a lot of traction in the US. Positron says they can deliver more bandwidth with less noise than G.Fast. The Positron GAM spits out Ethernet at the customer apartment unit and can be used with any existing CPE like WiFi routers, computers, TVs, etc.

This is a new technology and the company currently has only a few test units at clients in the field. Like all new technology, a company should consider this as a beta technology where the vendor will be working out field issues. But this technology has a lot of promise if perfected. There are a lot of older MDUs where the cost of rewiring is prohibitive or where the building owners don’t want fiber strung through hallways. Getting to apartment units through existing copper wiring should be less disruptive, less expensive and faster to market.

I always caution all of my clients about using first-generation technology. It’s bound to suffer from issues that aren’t discovered until deployed in real-world situations. First-generation equipment is always a risk since many vendors have abandoned product lines that have too many field problems. The supply chain is often poorly defined, although in the case of Positron the company has been providing technical support for many years. My main concern with beta technology is that it’s never comfortable using end-user customers as guinea pigs.

However, an MDU might be the perfect environment to try new technology. Many MDUs have been unable to attract better broadband due to high rewiring costs and might be willing to work with an ISP to test new technology. If this technology operates as touted it could provide a cost-effective way to get broadband into MDUs, particularly older ones where rewiring is a cost barrier.