This isn’t about internet. This is about landline telephone service and being able to call 911. For those that don’t remember, landline phones work even when the power is out. No big deal if you have a cell phone and service. Very big deal if you live in a mountainous region where you rely on WiFi at home due to bad phone signal and would have to get in a car to drive somewhere with service to get emergency help or, say, report a forest fire caused by power lines snapping.
In the landline era, AT&T agreed to be the provider of last resort and they didn’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They got something in return. And even if “superior” technology exists, it’s not superior for “last resort” situations. One day, maybe we’ll all have satellite internet as a fallback on our mobile devices and landlines really will be obsolete. But that day isn’t today.
Excellent write up. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Yeah, sign me up too… Would you please send it as a telefax on the landline?
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They literally get boners
This.
You’d be surprised how much of a place’s physical infrastructure depends on a physical line. Automated fire alerts for high rises, security alarms, remote access for gates and doors, backup phone connections. A lot of this still uses old physical lines because it is easy to fix and highly reliable.
Now consider the infrastructure needed for specialized services like EMS, police, secure and classified buildings, federal agencies, embassies, smart traffic signals. Shutting down a network like that has massive implications for anything in society that relies on it, which is well beyond your cell phone plan.
Until fiber or celluar can have the same reliability as copper, then we can switch.
We need this law here in Canada. While they are NOT ATM shutting down copper POTS, they are no longer selling it to consumer’s from the main companies. Some smaller ones will offer it, but if there is a problem with the SLAM in your area for DSL, you’re told “deal with speeds or switch to copper cable or fiber”. They will not replace the SLAMs
FYI Verizon is ending their copper phone land lines in PA
