Hang-Ups in Cyberspace

Transitions are always challenging. Some are slow, and some drop out of the sky like the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I often walk down the street, passing earphone-connected people carrying on animated conversations via their cell phones, and wonder what someone teleported from the 1970s would think. Damn, everyone is talking to themselves! This place is nuts! How many half-conversations have you heard, private moments rather publicly expressed? Entire nations have side-stepped the massive cost of wiring their vast countryside and cityscapes to install modern wired telephony and leapt directly into the 21^st century with wireless systems.

While copper wiring is both expensive – the wire, the installation and the right-of-way – and a bit out-of-date (fiber optics anyone?), it is still the largest part of America’s wired telephone network. Digging warnings to homeowners and infrastructure contractors generally protect the existing network, but when repairs are necessary, they can be very labor intensive. Cell phone penetration in the United States statistically tops 100% (many folks have more than one phone!), smart phones top 60%, almost 16% of Americans do all their telephone communications via wireless, but 64% of us still cling to landlines. Yet a Georgetown University study tells us that less than 5% of the population rely exclusively on landlines.

Landlines are pretty consistently clearer, but perhaps much of that lies with the fact that cell phone calls often emanate from noisy venues. Such anchored phones are also more reliable, assuming that the wires remain intact. “[S]torms and power outages often knock out digital communications more quickly than you can say ‘World Wide Web,’ while analog phones plugged into land lines are often untouched. During the Great Northeast Blackout nearly a decade ago, cell phones died and Internet calling failed. There was no TV, no Web, and no news. I found out what was going on because a friend called me from Los Angeles--on my land line analog phone.” John Quain writing for FoxNews.com, June 26^th.

But, according to that Georgetown study, telecos spend a whopping average of $13.5 billion annually (measured over six years) to build and maintain those wired telephone networks (labeled “plain old telephone service” or POTS). There is a move afoot to deregulate the carriers, perhaps taking away a public utilities mandate that they continue to maintain POTS, a legacy system that many see as an endangered species. In 2009, the FCC opened the doors to public comments about loosening the rules.

There have been some experiments in this direction. “Since repairing the local POTS network would have been costly [on Long Island, NY’s Fire Island], Verizon brought in a service called Voice Link, which effectively turns a landline phone into a cellphone by sending calls over Verizon's wireless network. But within weeks, Fire Island residents revolted; the quality of the service made it nearly unusable. It took an intervention from the Federal Communications Commission for Verizon to relent and agree to install FiOS, its high-speed fiberoptic service, on the island.” Washington Post, October 8^th. There goes that fiber thang again.

Earlier this year, AT&T offered its wireless customers the ability to replace their wired, in-home POTS with a wireless station that links into the consumers existing cordless landline system. They added lots of bells and whistles – for a fee, of course – that can add international calls to 49 countries as local calls, caller ID, voicemail, etc. In some ways, this represents an encroachment on the local teleco; in other ways, it is simply a direction for the future.

On the other hand, the Worldwide Web is becoming the superhighway of entertainment and communications, and fiber connectivity seems to be the way of the future. Copper wire, thy days are numbered. Wireless, you shall grow. Given the massive demand for bandwidth, from business communications to complex and rich media television content, it does seem as if those wires will slowly become pure fiber and carry… everything. How do you feel about losing your POTS, replacing it with Web-based telephony? Wireless? Skype anyone?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I think we’ve a long way since smoke signals and the Pony Express!