Of course, and that sentence in one short line describes everything that has gone wrong with telco regulation in the past decade.
But the original poster is asking about telephone service.
--scott
Suppose I have a copper pair connected to a CO-powered phone. It sounds as if my carrier (AT&T) is obliged to share this copper with any ISP I designate. Is this correct?
If I relinquish the analog copper service, by going to U-verse or something equivalent, do I then lose the right to ask AT&T to share the copper pair with other ISPs? Can I get the right back, perhaps by paying for reinstallation of an analog service line?
To put a sort of closure on my original question, after AT&T made their changes to the "redback" edge routers in Sacramento my service has been reasonably good. For the time being there's not enough incentive to change to another ISP. At least, not yet....
Thanks for reading and all your insights!
bob prohaska
No. You have no rights at all.
ISPs have essentially no rights to use the AT&T network either. That has been the case for over a decade, as the FCC's War on ISPs shut them down by the thousands. The wire is AT&T's to use as they wish. The fact that it was installed as a monopoly utility that was meant to be regulated and open to all is, well, just a joke to them. "Hahaha, they win."
Technically, CLECs (not ISPs) have the right to lease some ILEC copper loops, which they can use to provide DSL to ISPs (usually their own). But that only works for a clean, not-too-long copper pair that homes at the CO itself. And it's fairly hard to do, though maybe a few million such Unbundled Network Element Loops still exist around the country.
What the rules call for and what works in practice are two different things. AT&T takes a very hard line, refusing what look like legal requests, based on their having more lawyers and infinite time and money to resist. And they are essentially never penalized for flouting the rules.
In theory, a copper distribution sub-loop (the last mile starting at the subscriber end, ending somewhere in the field) is available for CLECs (not ISPs) to connect to, unbundled. But the logistics are hard. It's sort of like sending your own satellites into space on your own rocket. Yes, Elon Musk has managed to put together an operation that can do it, but it's not easy, and the financial viability of the whole scheme is questionable. And Musk didn't have to fight AT&T.
Yes, but they are not obliged to share it with another POTS provider.
No. You will have traded in a tariffed service for which the telco has certain restrictions for an untariffed service for which they have no restrictions.
If you change to another DSL ISP, they will be using AT&T's infrastructure, however when something goes wrong they will have to fight with AT&T on your behalf rather than leaving you to talk to the lowest grade of support representative in a desperate attempt to get them to take your problem seriously. The service itself will be the same, the hardware will be the same, but the support will not be.
--scott
Ok, that isn't a huge problem.
Moral of the story: Hang on to your POTS! 8-)
Not clear whether that's a plus or a minus. So far, my experience with ATT tech support hasn't been all that bad. Interestingly, the "local" ISP seems to charge a little bit less than ATT for DSL.
Thanks for your insights!
bob prohaska
In Fayetteville, AR my ISP is Earthlink, providing DSL over AT&T copper. Service has been reasonably satisfactory. I've had a couple of outages, in one case caused by AT&T equipment and in another case caused by an AT&T cable problem. Both took several days to resolve. The first time the delay was in getting Earthlink to realize the problem was in the AT&T plant and get AT&T on it. The second time Earthlink told me the trouble was an AT&T cable and nothing to do until AT&T fixed it.
My friend in Columbia MO gets DSL from an ISP right there in town, Socket.net. They use CenturyLink copper. He's had a couple of incidents of intermittently bad service: one was caused by a loose connection on his premises, which I discovered during a visit and fixed, and the second time was apparently trouble in the CenturyLink cable. He only got that fixed by subscribing to a higher speed DSL service: I guess that forced CenturyLink to give Socket a better cable pair.
It must be emphasized that "obliged", as used in this context, doesn't mean very much. That is, on paper the carriers may be required to provide certain services at a certain level of quality, but it doesn't mean that they will meet their obligation. As we've seen, many of the carriers have let their customers down. Even entire communities have been screwed.
I can't speak for AT&T, but Verizon is racing for the bottom of service quality. This is sad, because its predecessors, Bell Atlantic and Bell of Pennsylvania, provided good service.
Mr. Goldstein makes many excellent points in his posts, including: "No. You have no rights at all."
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