> Today I received a letter from Verizon regarding my residence in
> Newton [Massachusetts] saying "Verizon is replacing telephone wires
> and removing obsolete equipment to ensure long-term service
> reliability for our customers. To avoid future service interruptions
> we'll need to move your telephone service to our new fiber
> network. This will be done at no charge to you and you will keep the
> same voice service at the exact same price you're paying now."
A VZ tech told me that the department that supports copper had been merged in with the FiOS department. He said their goal is to get rid of all copper by the end of the year.
Way back when DSL first rolled into the neighborhood I signed up with Verizon. Bad mistake, inept service, not at all reliable.
The company 'DSL Extreme' provides service over the Verizon copper so I switched to them. The line drops occasionally but one call to DSL Extreme resolves the problem. As often as not their outgoing announcement advertises "widespread service outage in the following Verizon service areas ...".
I have a static IP address from DSL Extreme. Verizon has no competitive FIOS service. What is the value proposition?
One reason that comes to mind is continuity of service in the absence of generator backup.
Another is the nuisance value/expense of having to replace that ONT battery every couple of years.
I've got a little generator, so continuity is not an issue. But if I did not have a generator, "Verizon is replacing telephone wires and removing obsolete equipment to ensure long-term service reliability for our customers." would come across as just another example of self-serving corporate BS.
I don't know any CLEC that actively goes after any residential accounts and resells over the ILEC cable plant. They either target business only customers, or it is the cableco selling access over their own network.
The ILEC copper plant is definately becoming less and less relevant.
It my experience, the weather beats on the copper plant like nothing else, and deteriates it, especially here in Minnesota with our fairly extreme weather, snow, rain, hot sun, etc. Every spring/fall I hear lots of complaints of degraded phone lines, static, cross talk, etc.
Dry copper current loop alarms are pretty old tech, it hasn't been preferred for many many years. Even in the last 12-15 years, it has been more preferable to share a regular phone line for that. But now, more and more alarm systems use cell-phone technology. Either SMS alerting, or even voice alerting over a cell call. Cell tech means no "phone lines to cut" by burglers.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Since cellular units are easy to jam, most high-value installations use simple transmitters which will transmit a usable signal even if a cell-phone jammer is turned on.
{Hmm, I don't see this in my spool, but extracted from the Hofkin quote}
I must wonder if this is required or they are trying to trick you. [I know, I know....]
I suggest a letter back demanding clarification.
Under what authority are they doing this? Am {I} *required* to submit? What will my DSL or equivalent service cost? How will my phone/data work without local power? [& mention Sandy] Who pays for the local power the ONT requires?
etc. Send the letter in certified to some big cheese. CC: the Mass PSC or equivalent...
I just got a "Rachael from Verizon" robocall telling me the same thing. I ignored her/it.
As for Hofkin's note: A friend with copper was out of service for 4+ months as they could not dispatch anyone who understood enough to fix it. They kept sending FIOS techs who looked askew at it and left.
Although copper-based Outside Plant is vulnerable to weather, that's also true for /any/ physical layer. Fiber optic cable-based local plant /might/ be more reliable, but it's because, paradoxically, it's a more complicated and brittle technology than copper.
Fiber optic cables must be terminated in expensive and complicated electronic devices, which are, let's not forget, both newer and better-protected than the older terminal boxes where copper wires are "fanned out" to feed buildings and/or subsidiary cables. The ONT terminals where fiber-optic strands transition to copper have the advantage of modern materials, better weatherproofing, and (most importantly) a continuous, uninterupted path back to the CO.
Most problems with copper are due to deterioration of the splices, and local cables can be spliced at so many potential failure points that they become hard to maintain simply because operating companies don't choose to pay for routine maintenance of the many splices that have been installed over the years at terminal boxes, aerial tie plates, and manholes.
In short, copper is being killed by the cold-hearted economics of the telephone business: the simplicity, intuitive operation, and flex- ibility of centrally-powered metallic conductors has led to their becoming a thing of the past, replaced not because of the cost of the metal, but because of the cost of maintaining it.
Verizon says they won't re-build the copper plant in Mantoloking NJ after most of it was destroyed by Sandy. Instead they are providing telephone service through their new service called Verizon Voice Link.
Voice Link basically connects your home telephone service to Verizon Wireless but it operates just like it was connected to the CO with a copper line - same telephone number, 911, etc.. However, in the event of a power failure, it does run on 3 AA batteries which last 36 hours. That's a lot better than FiOS which only gives you about 6 hours. With enough spare AA batteries, you could go for a while.
More information in the 5/4 edition of the Asbury Park Press located at
This discussion has me wondering about the EMP weapons that have surfaced in the news lately. (long story==>short story: devices have been developed/weaponized that can deliver an electromagnetic pulse similar that of an atomic bomb - but without the atomic bomb). viz:
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I'm thinking the replacement of copper by fiberoptic would mean one less vehicle for the pulse to get into electronic gear - leaving, of course, AC power lines... but I have no clue how vulnerability differs between phone and power lines.
There are companies who still sell residential service over unbundled copper. I have some as clients. The numbers don't work unless there's DSL in the bundle (POTS alone isn't worth it) but it allows alternatives to Verizon DSL. The fiber, of course, is closed to them, so pulling out the copper is a way to lock you out of alternative carriers. The alternative carrier could still make use of the copper plant if they paid for a new drop wire, but that adds considerable cost.
I don't know of any such carriers here in Newton (where I am too), but then I get my phone lines, and Internet access, from both Comcast and RCN. They're both pretty reliable here.
Now I don't think they can *require* you to drop your copper. VZ's new game is to refuse copper repairs to "chronic customers". But I have my doubts that the Mass. Commissioner of Telecommunications & Cable, Geoffrey Why, would allow wholesale removal of copper service. Also note that once they have you on FiOS, they're try to get you to switch service from Verizon-Massachusetts (tariffed, price-capped) to another Verizon subsidiary (an unregulated one). This removes most of your consumer protections, and allows them to plead poverty -- they are losing so many customers! But to other subsidiaries. It's a dirty trick.
The cost of maintaining copper isn't trivial, but it does last a long time. Some of their wires are more than 60 years old! Which is well past their sell-by date, given that depreciation schedules were never more than 40 years (AFAIK) and are shorter now. They basically stopped maintaining things about 15 years ago when they were moved from rate of return regulation to price cap regulation. If they stopped the upkeep, they'd be allowed to keep the profit... which works for a short time. But now the unmaintained plant is collapsing. And FiOS isn't getting the hoped-for amount of business, especially in cable TV. So they're desperate to push FiOS, by hook or by crook, where it was installed, though they're not installing much more.
Well, no. There is a fiber drop to the house which is spliced atop the pole, or plugged into a connector if the aerial cable was pre-connectorized. And there could be splices in the fiber going back to the CO. I've heard of reels going as far as 18 kilofeet, but there could well be splices on the fiber path. And those have to be done right.
Age and lack of maintenance do take a toll. By the 1980s, they were anticipating replacing the copper plant with fiber. In 1992-1993, the Bells promised most states that they would replace most copper with fiber by 2000 and completely get rid of copper by 2008-2010 or so, providing 45 Mbps bidirectional common carrier (NOT just their "information service") service to the home. In exchange, they were allowed to move from strict price controls (rate of return) to looser ones (price caps). Of course they didn't comply.
Hence Kushnick's Law: "A regulated company will always renege on promises to provide public benefits tomorrow in exchange for regulatory and financial benefits today."
FiOS is not regulated in the same way copper POTS was, in some very important respects.
First, access: Vz doesn't /have/ to provide third party access (so for example there will never be another Speakeasy, or 10-10-220 if you remember that).
Second, while Comcast is the vocal leader on this, Vz is right behind them: they like to claim that since it's not a POTS line any more that the provisions of common-carrier status don't apply (Comcast has voiced this on a few occasions in testimony to the FCC; Verizon for it's part took the FCC to court about net neutrality last year, wherein they basically said the same thing Comcast said ("common-carrier doesn't apply to us anymore"):
There are basically three ways an EMP pulse can enter and destroy telecommunications equipment. The first two, which you mentioned, are through the lines themselves [including antenna feed lines for wireless equipment], and through the power lines that may feed the equipment. The third way is if the equipment is close enough to the source of the pulse that it is directly exposed to the field.
Protecting against EMP is something that the DOD and the telecommunications industry have been working on for a long time. They first started on it way back in the early days of the cold war, almost immediately after they became aware of it. Some of the studies and reports have been declassified in recent years, and links to many of them can be found in the archives of the yahoo group known as "coldwarcomms" [1]. Just search the thread subject lines for "EMP," and make sure you have room for a lot of PDF files ;^)
How resistant copper-based telecommunications hardware is to EMP varies widely, but I think I can confidently say that today's equipment, built around low-power CMOS components, is much more vulnerable than earlier generations of solid-state equipment. I recently read a study from an actual EMP test in the late 1960's, in which real, functioning ESS equipment and D type T1 channel banks were subject to increasingly higher field strength pulses. Some of the old equipment was a lot harder to kill than some ever might have thought. Keep in mind that most of that equipment was built to a NEBS 3 level of quality even before the standard existed, with chassis made of now rare and exotic materials such as steel.
At the CO end, the level of EMP hardening that takes place likely depends on just how important the Fed feels a particular installation is. A local CO in a small town might have none, but a major East Coast switching center that carries government and DSN [2] traffic will likely by bolted down quite tightly indeed.
At the customer end, things get a lot dicier. If a company wants to, they can certainly build an installation that is highly resistant to EMP. In reality, most commercial systems, and certainly all consumer grade equipment, is woefully unprotected. Some of the steps to EMP control involve the same hardware that is used to meet code requirements for protection against lightning and high-voltage power line crosses, and we all see how little emphasis there is on this now days.
As far as how fiber vs. copper relates to all of this, that also varies. Fiber does have the advantage of not acting like a giant antenna to pick up an EMP pulse and bring it directly into the endpoint equipment, provided that the fiber cable is not reinforced with a metal jacket or support/strength strand [such cable does exist]. The FiOS system is a completely passive optical network [3] between the CO and the customer, so the direct exposure of fiber regenerators [repeaters] [4] has also been eliminated. This certainly is an advantage when hardening for EMP, compared to a copper T1 or HDSL line with multiple repeaters along the span that could be fried. At the customer end, FiOS terminates in a box that contains plenty of EMP sensitive parts. The ONT boxes that we see around here are fairly well made equipment from the likes of Tellabs and Alcatel/Lucent, but I doubt they can withstand a pulse of any real amplitude. Even if the guts were protected and enclosed in a metal shielded box, it would only help if the shielding had a very low-impedance path to ground. Every ONT box seen around here has the ground lugs left unconnected, or "flapping in the breeze," as they say.
So, to sum up, ordinary people and businesses who use electronic communications are likely to see no real difference in the robustness of their connections where EMP is concerned, regardless of whether they are fed by FiOS or not. Of course, everyone knows that only crazy "bunker mentality" people worry about these things, right? ;^)
References and Notes:
[1]
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[2] Defense Switched Network, the successor to Autovon
[3] Talking here about true FiOS, with fiber all the way to the customer, not "Fiber to the neighborhood" systems such as U-verse
[4] Modern fiber regen equipment uses EDFA to eliminate a lot of the solid-state electronics that was needed in the past, but still contains lots of silicon in the power supply and control circuitry. See wikipedia for an explanation of EDFA
Jim Bennett =================================================================== The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.
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