Small cells not seen as viable replacement for retiring copper landline telecom infrastructure

Better cell phone service could come at a cost for California cities | The Sacramento Bee: Humboldt County Supervisor Rex Bohn said he doesn’t see telecom companies rushing into rural communities that have no or low connectivity, either. The small cells need to be close together to work most efficiently, and there isn’t enough demand in such areas to attract the companies.

Various observers have pointed to legacy incumbent telephone company plans to retire aging copper cable landline infrastructure in less densely populated areas and replace it with wireless service. Their business models that demand rapid return on investment do not permit its replacement with fiber to the premise (FTTP) infrastructure. However, the same business model constraints apply to wireless infrastructure as well as this Northern California county supervisor notes. Especially since those small cells will need a lot of fiber backhaul to be constructed to support them.

AT&T’s bifurcated, speculative strategy on residential telecom service

AT&T has adopted a bifurcated and highly speculative future strategy for its residential premise telecommunications market segment that treats a small portion of it like a specialized business market for its fiber to the premise (FTTP) service while serving other residential customers with a mix of wireless technologies.

AT&T Fiber is primarily aimed at business premises and multi-family buildings and not single family homes. The company is phasing out its legacy U-Verse service that blends fiber to neighborhood distribution equipment with copper from the era of Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) – metallic infrastructure it is anxious to retire as quickly as possible to avoid the cost of maintaining it. In its place AT&T is relying on proven and unproven radio-based technologies.

In some high cost areas of its U.S. service territory, AT&T recently announced it would construct infrastructure designed to deliver fixed residential premise service as part of upgrading its mobile wireless service to 4G LTE technology. However, that infrastructure will be obsolete the day it’s installed, not even close to approaching what the U.S. Federal Communications Commission considers service capable of supporting high-quality voice, data, graphics and video. It’s essentially a bolt on afterthought to a 4G LTE mobile wireless service upgrade that will likely bog down during peak periods as its shared bandwidth becomes saturated with heavy, multi-premise demand.

As for the unproven radio-based technology that’s still in the development phase, AT&T recently announced its experimental “Project AirGig” technology. It will utilize antennas mounted atop utility poles to transmit millimeter wave signals from pole to pole. It taps into those signals to feed premise service based on 4G (or more optimally, AT&T’s still under development 5G wireless technology.) The service will apparently be similar to electrical power distribution architecture where current from high voltage transmission lines on the tops of poles is stepped down by a transformer before it flows into a home. This service in theory would be capable of meeting the FCC’s minimum service standard. But at this point, it’s largely speculative and leaves much of AT&T’s residential market segment with no clear and certain future path as its legacy copper cable POTS plant rots on the poles.

Outmoded 1990s thinking retards U.S. telecom infrastructure modernization

Digitally Unconnected in the U.S.: Who’s Not Online and Why? | NTIA: But what about those Americans who do not use the Internet? Whether by circumstance or by choice, millions of U.S. households are not online, and thus unable to meaningfully participate in the digital economy. Data from NTIA's July 2015 Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey confirm that the digital divide persists. In 2015, 33 million households (27 percent of all U.S. households) did not use the Internet at home, where families can more easily share Internet access and conduct sensitive online transactions privately. Significantly, 26 million households--one-fifth of all households--were offline entirely, lacking a single member who used the Internet from any location in 2015.

This report reflects the limited thinking that retards the direly needed modernization of telecommunications infrastructure in the United States. It adopts a one-dimensional view of modern telecommunications rooted in the later 1990s and early 2000s when internet protocol-based telecommunications solely meant going on line with a computer, using dialup or DSL where it was being rolled out.

Nearly two decades later, the internet isn't just about going online, particularly as legacy telephone companies look to retire their aged and obsolete copper cable plants and fiber to the premise (FTTP) obsoletes metallic cable and can support multiple telecom services. Internet protocol also supports voice service (Voice Over Internet Protocol) as well as video, both one way and interactive. It's a multi-modal telecommunications platform.

Aging legacy copper infrastructure isn't solely a regulatory issue

Regulatory Relief Would Speed FCC’s Broadband Deployment Goals | USTelecom: Removing barriers to investment is a concrete action the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can take to accelerate broadband deployment, USTelecom said in recent comments responding to an inquiry on the state of broadband availability. To that end, the commission should approve USTelecom’s forbearance petition requesting Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs) be relieved of directing investment to legacy telephone networks and allowed to redirect that money to next-generation broadband networks. USTelecom said its member companies are required to invest in legacy networks that soon will become obsolete while other broadband providers- cable, wireless, and competitive fiber providers do not have this requirement, and that forbearance relief for ILECs would help the FCC achieve its goal of deploying broadband to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.

This isn't a problem caused solely by regulatory requirements. Rather, it's a train wreck borne of poor policy and planning. Had an orderly plan to migrate from copper-based legacy telephone service to fiber-based Internet protocol-based telecommunications been put in place and executed starting two decades ago, the United States would not be in the current dire situation where legacy copper plant is literally rotting on the the poles. As it does, it grows increasingly less reliable to support voice telephone service -- and emergency call response -- in areas where the copper has not been replaced by fiber -- as well as copper-based DSL where it is offered.

Unpacking USTelecom FCC forbearance petition: no obligation to continue copper plant

GN 14-126: USTelecom Comments on 2015 Broadband Progress Report | USTelecom: First, the Commission should grant the petition that USTelecom filed in October 2014 that seeks forbearance from various outdated regulatory requirements applicable only to incumbent local exchange carriers (“ILECs”). As USTelecom explained in its Forbearance Petition, unlike most broadband providers – including cable, wireless, and competitive fiber providers – ILECs are not free to focus their expenditures on next-generation networks designed to deliver the higher-speed broadband services customers increasingly crave; instead they “must direct a substantial portion of their expenditures to maintaining legacy networks and fulfilling regulatory mandates whose costs far exceed any benefits.”

USTelecom is correct in noting there's little point in investing in obsolete copper networks. But its petition to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission fails to cite any regulations that specifically require telephone companies to deliver services solely over copper and not fiber.

Instead, the filing appears to pick a bone with existing rules governing ILEC last mile network operations and access -- rules that are predicated on ILECs having a monopoly over last mile infrastructure. The petition does not explain how these rules operate to discourage investment to upgrade copper networks to fiber.

Expect more legacy incumbent telephone company complaints as the FCC adopts final rules later this year reclassifying Internet service as a common carrier utility under Title II of the Communications Act.

Trash bags and electrical tape: The train wreck of a botched transition to fiber

Over the course of the last three decades, legacy incumbent telephone companies totally botched any semblance of an orderly transition to fiber optic connections to customer premises to support modern Internet enabled services. The resulting train wreck of aging, decades old copper cable telecommunications infrastructure designed to provide analog voice telephone service referred to as POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) that cannot support even first generation DSL is painfully on display throughout much the telcos' service territories. It's literally being held together with trash bags and electrical tape.

Steve Blum's blog reports the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is seeking to determine if telcos are neglecting copper to the point where it is no longer reliably usable and what should be done with all the aging copper infrastructure that's been left to rot on the poles.

Telcos’ copper cable plants deteriorate with no clear plans to replace them with fiber

A crisis affecting Americans who obtain premises telecommunications services (Internet, voice, and video) from legacy telephone companies has been slowly unfolding over the past 10 years. 

These companies’ copper cable plants are growing very aged and nearing the end of their useful lives with no clear plan to replace them with fiber optic cables.

The problem has worsened in the past decade as telcos have concentrated their infrastructure investments on mobile wireless services while all but ignoring their deteriorating landline cable plants. Much of it is in such poor condition that it can’t deliver any Internet connectivity or only marginally at sluggish speeds.

One strategy going forward is to sell as AT&T is doing with its Connecticut residential landline unit. However, in parts of telcos’ service territories where the copper cable plant is ancient and a fully depreciated asset, it’s questionable as to what value any potential buyer would see in such a deal.

A possible path to resolution of this crisis could come later this year if the U.S. Federal Communications Commission opts to subject Internet protocol-based services to common carrier and universal service requirements under Title II of the Telecommunications Act of 1934.

Colorado legislation would redirect high cost telephone subsidies to Internet infrastructure

Two Colorado legislators are developing legislation to repurpose surcharges on voice landline and cell phone service to subsidize landline telephone service in high cost, less densely populated areas of the state to instead defray the cost of building out Internet infrastructure. "By funding land lines and copper-line phones, we're funding buggy whips,” Senator Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, told the Denver Post.

Rocky Mountain State lawmakers will however face resistance from incumbent telcos who want to preserve the status quo and continue to provide Internet service over their existing copper cable plants to a subset of wireline customers while deeming the rest unprofitable to serve. Throughout much of the United States, the latter cohort are in innumerable small pockets beyond the short range of DSL signals and/or where the existing copper cable is too old and deteriorated to deliver Internet service. First formed around 2000 and still around more than a decade later, they are like thousands of little holes in a big Swiss cheese, comprised of discrete premises, roads, streets and neighborhoods. Rather than “unserved areas,” they are more accurately described as redlined addresses and neighborhoods, typically avoided by both telcos and cable companies. The unfortunate residents are forced to rely on obsolete dialup offered by telcos or satellite Internet more properly suited to remote areas of the planet while the more fortunate may have access to fixed terrestrial wireless service from a local provider.

Incumbent telcos insist rules for government subsidy programs direct funds only to “unserved areas.” But building new wireline premises infrastructure is a costly, large scale endeavor that can make filling in these numerous voids one at a time impractical even with subsidies. In California, for example, incumbent telcos have largely shunned subsidies for premises Internet infrastructure offered through a six-year-old subsidy fund, the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), similar to that being contemplated for Colorado. They have also challenged proposed CASF wireline projects by arguing the projects would serve premises adequately served by mobile broadband services.

Only a large scale overbuild of the outmoded copper cable plant with fiber to the premise infrastructure makes sense over the long term from both a technological and economic standpoint. State and federal Internet infrastructure subsidy funds should be structured accordingly.

Fiber to the Home Council : Blogs : Telcos Saving Serious Money by Upgrading to FTTH, Survey Finds

Fiber to the Home Council : Blogs : Telcos Saving Serious Money by Upgrading to FTTH, Survey Finds: (WASHINGTON) – Small and medium-sized telephone companies that have upgraded their networks to all-fiber are reporting operational cost savings averaging 20 percent annually, according to a study commissioned by the Fiber to the Home Council Americas, a non-profit group of nearly 300 companies and organizations dedicated to expanding the availability of ultra high speed, all-fiber broadband.

The survey of more than 350 telecommunications providers across North America, conducted by the market analyst firm RVA LLC, also pointed to a steady drumbeat of FTTH deployment activity, with the number of homes that can access FTTH networks increasing by 17.6 percent over a year ago to 22.7 million.

While consumers served by these smaller telcos will benefit (as will the telcos with lower OPex costs), there are many more served by large telcos like AT&T and Verizon who won't.  Neither company is upgrading its copper plant to fiber to the premise.

Outdated telephone regulation matches dominant obsolete telco infrastructure

Coalition says broadband means new jobs: SPRINGFIELD — Investments in broadband technology created more than 13,000 jobs in Illinois in 2010 and 2011, according to a study funded by AT&T.

The study also reported that in 2012, Illinois had almost 20,000 jobs related to mobile applications.

The study was released Thursday by a new coalition of 12 Illinois groups representing business and job creation proponents, taxpayer advocates and communications companies.

The new coalition — the Illinois Partnership for the New Economy & Jobs — formed to urge Illinois to modernize its telecommunications law.

“Illinois’ law mandates investment in the 100-year-old technology of wired telephones to your home,” said coalition chair David Vite, who is also president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association. “Those dollars would be better used for private investment in broadband networks that are currently creating new jobs.”

The stated implication of this study is fallacious.  It assumes but for government regulations requiring telcos to maintain obsolete copper cable wireline infrastructure to provide required telephone services, incumbent telcos would be able to replace it with fiber optic plant delivering Internet Protocol (IP)-based services.  The outdated laws and regulations appropriately remain on the books because the outdated publicly switched copper POTS infrastructure remains the dominant infrastructure in most of the nation, much of it incapable of delivering any IP-based services.

AT&T may invest in rural lines rather than divest, CEO says

AT&T may invest in rural lines rather than divest, CEO says: AT&T has said it would consider selling its rural access line unit, but Mr. Stephenson hinted earlier this year that such a sale could prove complex. The difficulty comes from the lines spanning multiple states and therefore needing several regulatory approvals that would likely take significant time.

On Wednesday, he said finding an internal solution for the business would avoid having to go through that process.

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There is also a simple business fact at play.  Who wants to buy obsolete copper cable plant?

He also noted that AT&T's wireless service could ultimately prove to be a solution for fixed-line broadband connections in less-dense markets as its next-generation LTE network rolls out.

"LTE can become a fixed-line replacement or even better than what you get from fixed line," he said.

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If Mr. Stephenson is talking about first generation ADSL, he would be right.  But wireless cannot equal or exceed wireline fiber to the premise.

The Man from Glad meets Ma Bell

The plastic helps muffle the dying cries of obsolete legacy copper POTS cable plant.

AT&T struggles with burden of legacy copper wireline plant

This Bloomberg item shows how the nation's largest wireline telecom player continues to struggle under the burden of its outdated legacy infrastructure.  According to the article, AT&T is trying to decide whether to sell off wireline plant where it does not offer its DSL-based U-Verse triple play product.

At issue is whether to upgrade field distribution equipment to extend the reach of U-Verse to more premises.  But doing so still relies on AT&T's decades-old, legacy copper cable plant to bring the service to residential premises.  That plant is less than optimal for transporting the higher frequency and more interference-prone VDSL protocol utilized by U-Verse, boosting the volume of customer service calls and increasing operating expenses.  The technical limitations of the copper plant also bar AT&T from reaching about 5 million residential premises that remain disconnected from the Internet, as noted in the article by Barclay Capital analyst James Ratcliffe.

Cable emerges as dominant commercial ISP

As the Internet becomes the all purpose global telecommunications medium delivering voice, video, the web and email, cable companies have emerged as the dominant Internet Service Provider (ISP).

As Susan P. Crawford explains in this Harvard Law & Policy Review article The Communications Crisis in America, compared to incumbent telcos and wireless and satellite ISPs, only cable offers sufficiently robust bandwidth and headroom going forward. Telcos can't keep up since they would incur unabsorbable costs to replace their obsolete copper cable plants with fiber -- costs that would also make their generous stock dividends obsolete.

That's not likely to change despite the Federal Communications Commission's recent reforming of the Universal Service Fund (USF) from subsidizing plain old telephone service (POTS) in high cost areas to Internet. The Connect America Fund (CAF) requires telcos merely provide first generation DSL-level connectivity of 4Mbs for downloads and 1Mbs up and allocates only $4.5 billion a year -- hardly enough to meaningfully offset the cost of changing out decades-old copper plant for fiber.

In the wireless realm, the physics of radio spectrum hamstring wireless ISPs while satellite Internet -- on the verge of obsolescence from the day it was introduced -- has clearly reached its expiration date.

With cable now the dominant commercial Internet provider for most Americans, Crawford argues for increased government scrutiny of its monopoly market power. Crawford's position may draw support from community networks that have gone up against cable companies that pull out all the political stops to preserve their monopolies. The cable guys don't always win as Longmont, Colorado showed this week and as reported by Christopher Mitchell of Community Broadband Networks. Community networks also have a technological carrying capacity edge over the hybrid coax/fiber cable plant employed by cable companies since they typically deploy full fiber to the premises networks.

Copper vaporware as AT&T chief declares DSL obsolete

Every couple of years or so, an article like this one by Tara Seals of V2M appears arguing legacy copper telecommunications infrastructure designed for a pre-Internet analog era is far from obsolete. Technical innovations can extend its lifespan, even as bandwidth demand is increasingly challenging its carrying capacity, particularly from Over The Top (OTT) video content:

Telcos are seeking cost-effective solutions to maximize their legacy infrastructure. Reducing crosstalk across copper bonded pairs using the ITU-T G.vector standard (G.993.5), introducing software solutions to maximize network logistics and using caching in the network are all solutions that are occurring right now, as telcos position themselves to meet the rapidly growing consumer OTT demand.

If that's the case, then why did AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson declare this week that the workhorse technology that has transported Internet protocol content over AT&T's copper network for the past decade and a half -- Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) -- is obsolete?

What about that innovation to stave off copper obsolescence? If it were for real instead of vaporware hype, it would truly provide AT&T tremendous opportunity to offer more wireline Internet services to a lot more customers over its legacy copper plant. Clearly for AT&T, that's not the case as the telco shifts away from residential wireline and is instead concentrating capital expenditures on personal wireless services.

On death bed, aged copper POTS plant dials 911

In a late December filing with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, AT&T pronounced its residential wireline segment in a "death spiral."

While the big telco was figuratively referring to the business prospects of the segment, the aged POTS copper cable plant is literally dying in parts of California and calling the paramedics.

Old lines no longer in active service are generating electronic farts that produce phantom 911 calls according to this Capitol Weekly article that reports on efforts in the California Legislature to fix to the problem. (Good luck with that).