PSTN-to-IP transition

The FCC is having a terrible month, and consumers will pay the price

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is setting a record pace for deregulating the communications industries. Believe it or not, things are about to get worse in Nov. Starting with the FCC’s open meeting on Nov 16, the agency is poised to approve or propose no fewer than four decisions that will deregulate consolidated industries, remove consumer protections, and widen the digital divide:

The Quickening Pace of Landline Retirement

Sooner rather than later, landline telephone service will completely transition to wireless and Internet-based calling (commonly referred to as Voice Over the Internet Protocol or "VoIP").  While the Federal Communications Commission, for over a decade, has precluded a “flash cut” service termination, I expect the timeline for copper wire service retirements to shorten.

BEAD could help rural America with voice as well as broadband

In rural areas, many large internet service providers (ISP) offer voice-over-IP. Nathan Smith, Director of Economics and Policy at Connected Nation said, “It’s likely that a lot of [Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD)] sub-grantees will add voice for an additional revenue stream." However, the BEAD Notice of Funding Opportunity does not require grant applicants to offer voice service, though the actual grants will be made by state governments who set their own rules. Ciena’s Solutions Marketing Senior Adviser Vinicius Santos expects some state broadband offices to ask applicants

Unwinding the PSTN

The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) network has been used for interconnection to the local incumbent offices and tandem switches, for connecting to 911 centers, for connecting to operator services, for connecting to cellular carriers, or for connecting to other neighboring carriers. We are finally starting to see that network being shut down, route by route and piece by piece. But like everything related to operating in the regulated legacy world, it’s not easy to disconnect the PSTN connections called trunks.

Frontier CEO says copper decommissioning is 3-5 years out

Frontier Communications still has hundreds of thousands of copper passings, but it doesn’t seem like that footprint will be taken offline anytime soon.

Senators Urged To Invest In Variety Of Broadband Technologies

During a hearing titled "Building Resilient Networks," lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband were asked to boost the reliability of the nation's broadband networks by spreading infrastructure funding among a variety of technologies such as fixed wireless and mobile broadband rather than limiting it solely to fiber. Wireless Infrastructure Association President Jonathan Adelstein testified that a singular focus on fiber broadband networks that can deliver "symmetrical" speeds of 100 megabits per second would prioritize a sometimes c

AT&T and Frontier have let phone networks fall apart, California regulator finds

AT&T and Frontier have let their copper phone networks deteriorate through neglect since 2010, resulting in poor service quality and many lengthy outages, a report commissioned by the California state government found. Customers in low-income areas and areas without substantial competition have fared the worst, the report found. AT&T in particular was found to have neglected low-income communities and to have imposed severe price increases adding up to 152.6 percent over a decade.

What America Can Do to Strengthen Its Communications Infrastructure

Network reliability and network resiliency are distinct concepts that are inextricably linked. “Network reliability” means that you can rely on the fact that you will have phone service to make and receive phone calls and text messages. As an example, a network can become unreliable from a lack of network maintenance that leads to total degradation, or a lack of preparation to handle technological failure.

USTelecom Industry Metrics and Trends 2020: The Broadband Boom

USTelecom released its Industry Metrics and Trends 2020 report highlighting key elements of the broadband boom and investment story. USTelecom will weigh in soon explaining why the Federal Communications Commission should no longer mandate so-called network unbundling, a relic from a different (and far less competitive) era. Key highlights from the USTelecom Industry Metrics and Trends 2020:

Consumers and providers have made the transition from legacy voice to broadband and mobile communications services.

Court Dismisses Challenge of FCC Phone Deregulation

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a legal challenge from Public Knowledge, The Greenlining Institute and other groups to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s 2017 rollback of certain Obama-era requirements for phone companies angling to transition off of legacy copper networks. “This is a victory for American consumers, who will benefit from faster fiber deployment and the increased availability of next-generation services,” Chairman Pai said. He has touted the deregulation as critical for allowing the transition to more advanced, IP-based networks.

Public Interest Groups Urge Congress to Hold the FCC Accountable for America’s Degrading Telephone Network

Public Knowledge joined 23 other public interest, civil rights, tribal, and rural advocacy groups (including the Benton Institute) in a letter urging the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology to require Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai to address public safety concerns about America’s increasingly fragile and unreliable communications network. 

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for December 2019 Open Meeting

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, Dec 12, 2019:

988: Suicide Prevention Hotline Number – The FCC will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would propose to designate 988 as the 3-digit number for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline. (WC Docket No. 18-336)

A Small Number, A Big Difference

The last Federal Communications Commission meeting of 2019, on December 12, features more than one item that could receive top billing in an ordinary month. The FCC will consider:

FCC Grants Petitions for Waiver of Rural Broadband Experiment Obligations

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau issued an order granting two petitions seeking waiver of obligations to provide service to a specific number of locations as part of the rural broadband experiments program, filed by Allamakee-Clayton Electric Cooperative and Consolidated Communications Networks. The bureau said petitioners demonstrated the required number of locations exceeds the actual number the petitioners have been able to identify within their respective study areas.

In California Fires, Power Outages Knock Out Modern Phones

Dayslong power outages in California are revealing an inconvenient fact about modern phones: When the electricity goes out, so do they. Power shutdowns in the state meant to prevent further fire risk have cut power to some cell towers, as well as to cable providers that sell home voice services along with television programming and internet access.

Making the Digital Transition an “Upgrade for All” Again

Copper networks still form the backbone of America’s communication system despite the rise of fiber -- and providers are either pulling the plug or letting them fall into disrepair.

FCC’s CenturyLink 911 Outage Report Reveals Tech Transition Risk

The Federal Communications Commission released a report on the 911 outage originating in CenturyLink’s network that occurred Dec 27, 2018. The findings are the latest example of the risks involved in what the FCC calls the telecom “tech transition.” The 911 outage studied in the report was what is known as a “sunny day” outage – one not caused by weather or other natural disaster.

Frontier network outages get worse in NY, triggering state investigation

Frontier Communications customers are reporting more outages and longer repair times, and state government officials have decided to investigate.

Groundhog Day? Rural internet firm says Comcast messes up its bill every month, squashing its prospects

Jeffrey Houser launched the rural internet-service provider Rednet by shooting Wi-Fi from ridge-top antennas to customers from Punxsutawney (PA) of groundhog fame to homespun Blairsville (PA). His vision was to bring the internet to rural areas. And all was going well until Rednet connected off-campus apartments for students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, expanding beyond his rural base, but also encroaching on Comcast's turf.  And that’s when, Houser says, his company ran into the buzz saw of Comcast’s billing and collections department.

Pai Proposal Resolves USTelecom Forbearance Petition

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has circulated a proposal to grant USTelecom what is described as two narrow portions of its request for forbearance from applying some copper-era Telecommunications Act voice service support regulations to an increasingly fiber world. But it does not retire broadband-related obligations after USTelecom withdrew that ask July 1.

Public Knowledge Demands FTC, FCC Get Off Privacy Sidelines and Enforce Existing Law

Jan 15, reports surfaced that Voipo, a California voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP) provider, exposed millions of consumer call logs and text messages stored on an “improperly secured” ElasticSearch database for several months before security researcher Justin Paine located them. Public Knowledge demands that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai enforce existing Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) rules that protect the privacy of information related to telephone calls.

Public Knowledge Urges Court Not To Hang Up On Consumers in FCC Lawsuit

Public Knowledge, joined by Greenlining Institute, The Utility Reform Network (TURN), and the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA), filed a petitioners’ brief in the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit requesting the Court vacate the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 Technology Transitions Order, which rolled back consumer protections established in the agency’s 2015 Order.

FCC Authorizes an Additional $36 Million Annually to A-CAM Carriers for Rural Broadband Support

The Federal Communications Commission has released an additional $36 million annually for 175 small rural carriers that opted to transition to receive broadband Universal Service support based on the alternative Connect America cost model (A-CAM). In exchange, the A-CAM carriers have committed to more aggressive broadband deployment goals – although those goals are not as aggressive as those originally established for the A-CAM portion of the high-cost Universal Service program back in 2016.