To recap a speculative post I made some time back, seems to me that at
> least in those (quite widespread) situations where copper (or cable,
> or fiber) connections to business and residential premises already
> exist, or will continue to be created:
> a) VOIP telephone service totally without 911 could be the norm.
> b) All of the existing "hardwired connections" could continue to exist
> (including copper pairs included in or installed with fiber or TV
> cables), but would extend only to the telco (or cable, or fiber)
> "central office" and not be expected to provide any telco service > beyond that point.
> c) These would however provide the hard-wired connections not just for
> "911" services (activated perhaps by "pushbuttons" or the equivalent
> in the hardwired premises), but also for many other kinds of related
> security services (fire alarms, home security systems, home control
> systems, alarm bracelets for the elderly, "iPots", etc), provided by
> vendors who would take over the wiring infrastructure, and very
> possibly some or all of the CO facilities, from the telco. Utility
> meter reading via these hardwired connections would be another
> potential user -- not to mention DSL for those cases where cable,
> fiber or wireless didn't provide the broadband services to a given > premises.
> I appreciate there are many sunk costs, vested interests, and so on in
> this whole infrastructure, so it may not be obvious how to get from
> here to there; but if the vast majority of telephone traffic ended up
> on VOIP, wouldn't this make some sense, and in fact, maybe be the way
> in which you'd set up new green-field developments?
I'm a little perplexed by your speculation. Why would a move to VoIP have anything to do with killing off use of cable/fiber/copper for telco services? Are you predicting a move to a completely wireless service provision or am I just misunderstanding your comments? And if indeed you are predicting a move to an entirely wireless world, why are you portraying VoIP as the cause for this? Can you elaborate?
Dean