  danclan
join:2005-11-01
Midlothian, VA | Not sure why it took them so long to figure this out.....now if only they would go full fiber everywhere.... | |
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 ·Comcast
 ·Comcast Digital ..
1 edit | Re: Not sure why it took them so long Hmm, the landline is not dead, per se. It is HOW the landline is being delivered that is dying a painful death.
I have a landline at home and guess who provides it? Comcast, a cable company.
So, where as Comcast and other cable companies successfully got into Verizon and AT&T's asses by delivering telephone services just as well, if not better than the telcos, telcos will have to find their way into the cable markets and deliver just as well, if not better than the cable companies.
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Satan is always busy. He makes bad things look good and good things look bad! Watch that Devil. | |
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·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Not sure why it took them so long Landline is a landline, telephony line is a telephone line.
VoIP isn't the new "landline" it is the alternative to it.
There are still many legacy apps that require a traditional POTS line. Cheaper credit card terminals, telehealth vitals monitoring, etc. Sometimes T38 protocol enabled on a softswitch provider isn't enough to make it work.
Landlines are still relevant. It's just that telcos don't wish to maintain a product that isn't netting them 300% profit. | |
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| | |  RR ConductorHappy 40th AmtrakPremium
join:2002-04-02
Redwood Valley, CA
kudos:1
1 edit | Re: Not sure why it took them so long said by Network Guy:Landline is a landline, telephony line is a telephone line. VoIP isn't the new "landline" it is the alternative to it. There are still many legacy apps that require a traditional POTS line. Cheaper credit card terminals, telehealth vitals monitoring, etc. Sometimes T38 protocol enabled on a softswitch provider isn't enough to make it work. Landlines are still relevant. It's just that telcos don't wish to maintain a product that isn't netting them 300% profit. Bingo! I know in my line of work (government), having a dedicated voice landline and dedicated fax landline is a must.
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You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything. | |
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| | |  SlidetboneMazin GoPremium
join:2002-11-10
Land O Lakes, FL | High regulatory fees, local taxes, FCC subscriber line charges and other municipal phantom charges is what's killing the landline. IP telephony is not regulated and although not perfect and still riddled with packet losses and bad quality from time to time, it is favored because you pay exactly what you were quoted.
The telcos still use copper lines for transports and DSL. Dry Loop DSL has temporarily saved the landline albiet at a higher price, but it will take another decade for the PSTN technology to go defunct.
It is baffling as to why the telcos have not lobbied to drop all these regulated charges. I would think the regulators would be worried to lose the "profits" these fees bring them and allow the newer technology to settle in.
If I were a fat assed, bureaucratic pot bellied regulator, I would be relaxing these fees, maybe even exempting them so not to lose my cushy gov position in my red tape mandated job! It will take them years to tap into IP telephony and try to regulate it. | |
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| | | | | If its dead then why do I not have uverse in my neighborhood | |
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| | | cgigate
join:2003-05-12
Fort Worth, TX | Fax should be dead too.
No need T38 | |
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| | | | contsolePremium
join:2003-12-30
Bloomfield, CT | Re: Not sure why it took them so long I'm surprised the way fax hangs on, yet the fax machine in my office runs all day with clients sending in orders. | |
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approval from:
Abu Maryum 
| I think the billions and billions it would cost might be why Verizon stopped running Fiber to the home....
Verizon now runs Coaxial to the home just as Comcast does....
take notice their commericals dont broadcast fiber to the home anymore because there isn't a need to take it that far....
you would still need to convert to coax one way or the other
The problem was that of the signal strength was far too strong causing the tuners in the boxes to tile...
everyone wants more and more signal... but there is a threshold of -10 to +10 dbmv.... if you exceed this either way the picture quaility falls  | |
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| | AVonGaussPremium,MVM
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL
1 edit | Re: Not sure why it took them so long Where did you get the idea that Verizon FIOS is using a coaxial drop vs a fiber drop? Inside wiring AFAIK has always connected to the existing coaxial when possible or new coaxial is run inside the premises for their television product. | |
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1 edit | said by flyers :I think the billions and billions it would cost might be why Verizon stopped running Fiber to the home.... Verizon now runs Coaxial to the home just as Comcast does.... take notice their commericals dont broadcast fiber to the home anymore because there isn't a need to take it that far.... you would still need to convert to coax one way or the other The problem was that of the signal strength was far too strong causing the tuners in the boxes to tile... everyone wants more and more signal... but there is a threshold of -10 to +10 dbmv.... if you exceed this either way the picture quaility falls LOL. Coming from a Comcast.com account, your view would be a little bias wouldn't it. Verizon still runs fiber to the house, they just use the existing coax that's INSIDE the house. Nice try though. | |
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| |  bhawk55
join:2007-12-23
Crystal Lake, IL | That's interesting! I have uverse and am not using any coax. Everything in the house is connected with cat5 wire. | |
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| | | landline is not dead.screw them.we use landline at my work where the phone system has a huge box and goes to a bunch of lines.how many phones we have is around a dozen or maybe 15. | |
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| |  Doesn't mean copper will go away
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·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon FiOS
| Re: Doesn't mean copper will go away said by fAcEtIOUs:It just means that the copper they do have will need new equipment on the ends and in the middle. The middle really is already moving from circuit switched to IP. Now all they will push for is to replace old circuit switched phone equipment in the local offices and remaining homes with IP based equipment. However, the charges related to it seem to be kept on a long-term life support: Verzon's POTS over FIOS as a shining example--so, to make up for this potential of lost revenue.. their plan B is to raise the price of CABLE-TV & INTERNET ACCESS to make up for the small fees that can be collected in the face of FREE GOOGLE VOIP to a minimum of $100 collected per subscriber (at least one year before end of Obama's first term). | |
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| | | Agreed, Verizon states that they are running FIOS direct to the house, but that isn't true in the majority of cases. They run fiber to the underground and the last part of the run is definitely on twisted pair copper cable.
They won't be investing in fiber to the door unless they absolutely have to. They want to eliminate the majority of the copper so that they don't have to maintain it. New York is a prime example of how bad their copper plant is.
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"For Allah Has The Power To Will All Things."
Al-Quran | |
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| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
| Re: VoIP needs intelligibility standards. I've had VoIP connections that sound just as good, if not better than, POTS. Guess who these connections used as a gateway? If you guessed MagicJack, you're right. SIP technology is at a point where, as long as you have 128 kbps of symmetric bandwidth with halfway-reasonable latency and jitter you can have a solid voice conversation.
That said, there are a LOT of places where AT&T doesn't provide that. | |
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| | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: VoIP needs intelligibility standards. said by djrobx:Unless something's really wrong with your network, VOIP calls are pretty clear. But I suppose you're right, without some sort of standard, providers might keep reducing the codec bandwidths to save money. Might? THEY WILL!!!! Look at cellphones, in the 1990s it used to be 14kbitps, FOURTEEN. Now is VBR 9.6kbitps and falling as low as 6 kbitps.
They could also use, »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_Exci···ediction god help you if the telco uses that. | |
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|  dib22
join:2002-01-27
Kansas City, MO
kudos:2 | yea you should check out a skype to skype call my friend  you will be astounded how good 3k/sec can sound.
as for bell labs... well they sold that... at&t is just run by marketing now... it's only called at&t... it doesn't even run like SBC/Southwestern Bell anymore... it's turned it's attentions to only increasing profit... no longer does it care about innovation. | |
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| | Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
| Re: VoIP needs intelligibility standards. It is sad, the whole breakup of Bell really destroyed the best telephone system in the world and while they were at it destroyed a national brain trust! Judge Greene committed treason, in my honest opinion and was likely in the pocket of MCI and those that were able to profit on the breakup of Bell assets! I tell you, while there were some aspects of a telephone monopoly that were not the best ... I think the good far out weighed the bad.
Do to what the Government did to AT&T when they broke up Bell... why would any company want to invest in Fiber as an alternative to cooper as they worry that someday the government will come along and tell them, thanks for spending billions on infrastructure, now you are a monopoly, now you must open your fiber to anyone that wants to sell service!
The Government has to guarantee that they will not force AT&T, Verizon,etc, from sharing their fiber networks if they are going to consider fiber as the replacement to cooper. The Government should also must subsidize VZ and AT&T to lay infrastructure in the rural areas. Tell the government to pull foreign aid and spend money on America for a change! Hell, how many billions were sent to Israel this year? How many billions in Iraq? It's time for priorities to focus on the home-front and in order to keep America competitive we must be able to deliver the future, broadband, to our entire nation as to make sure people, businesses and schools have access to the new connected world!
Good reading material on the subject of rural infrastructure that may give some good insight on what would need to be done today in order to achieve a fully connected modern nation:
The Rape of Ma Bell by ALFRED W. DUERIG and CONSTANTINE RAYMOND KRAUS
Read it online:
»www.porticus.org/bell/rapeofmabell.htm | |
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| | | said by Mr Matt: VoIP needs intelligibility standards. Thank you! This has been a pet peeve of mine at every location where I have experienced VoIP service.
Back in the day, there were actually minimum standards that the phone companies were supposed to adhere to for voice and other services (even if they ignored them for the large part). Many of these grew out of the original Bell Labs engineering department, and were actually well thought out by some of the best engineers around.
If we are going to have VoIP shoved down our throats, there should at least be some minimum standards for service quality (even though they will will still be ignored by providers). The way it is currently, it's pretty much like the Wild West, where anything goes, and we keep paying the bill....  | |
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| AVonGaussPremium,MVM
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL
1 edit | Re: Suddenily it all makes sense! Except the irony with AT&T stating this is that U-verse still requires much of the PSTN infrastructure - including that "last mile" copper. I'm pretty sure this is more about getting out of regulations than anything else. Verizon in FIOS areas has a pretty good case, they're maintaining two separate network build-outs. | |
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| | Reviews:
·Comcast
| Re: Suddenily it all makes sense! Re: Suddenily it all makes sense!
Except the irony with AT&T stating this is that U-verse still requires much of the PSTN network - including that "last mile" copper. I'm pretty sure this is more about getting out of regulations than anything else. Verizon in FIOS areas has a pretty good case, they're maintaining two separate network build-outs.
Avon, you couldn't be further from the facts if you wanted to.
AT&T is running two networks on the same last mile copper. If you have a pots line, and have a dslam rt in the field you have 2 simultaneus networks running at the same time. The pots is circuit switched, and the dsl is packet switched. Check your facts before you spout off. | |
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| | | AVonGaussPremium,MVM
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL
1 edit | Re: Suddenily it all makes sense! said by jtorre69:Avon, you couldn't be further from the facts if you wanted to. Sure I could... 
said by jtorre69:AT&T is running two networks on the same last mile copper. If you have a pots line, and have a dslam rt in the field you have 2 simultaneus networks running at the same time. Okay, let's look at it this way; you "turn off POTS" in favor of VOIP in an area served by DSL or U-verse. What exactly do you get to turn off or remove? Remember, if DSL or U-verse is not available in an area, the whole broadband VOIP argument falls apart.
One advantage you would have if you didn't have "POTS" running on the subscriber line is you could use more advanced signaling to provide greater bandwidth to the subscriber, but AT&T could do that today with U-verse, there is nothing stopping them from doing so.
What this is really about, which is what I was alluding to in my original post, is the PSTN portion of the equation and how the country is linked together. | |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | 90% have broadband? What a joke Our area has at&t as the POTS provider and over half their customers here can't even get acess to at&t DSL. WTF are they smoking? IS at&t going to provide DSL to these people should they get permission to let copper lines die? Considering some people here have had DSL for over a decade and some are still waiting I think the answer is obviously no. If at&t wanted to give these people DSL they would have already done it. | |
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| percosan
join:2002-03-13
San Francisco, CA | Re: 90% have broadband? What a joke they will still need the copper to deliver DSL ...
at&t just wants to cherry pick after nearly a century of operating as a monopoly. F them. Time to payback their debt.
-p | |
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 MurdocPremium
join:2009-02-08
Manitowoc, WI
·Comcast
·AT&T DSL Service
| its dead because no one wants to pay... Its dead because no one wants to pay those damn every 3 month phone bill increases. Seems like there raising prices to purposely loose landline customers doesnt it? Constant slush fund increases and other BS fees. Blaming higher prices on customers that cancel, thats why you lost that customer in the first place. If its SO difficult to maintain landlines att and verizon, fold the tent up and GTFO! | |
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See 7 replies to this post |
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 DataDocMy avatar looks like me, if I was 2D.Premium
join:2000-05-14
Greenville, NC | Who's going to pay for switching all those home security systems to wireless?
Us.  | |
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| dib22
join:2002-01-27
Kansas City, MO
kudos:2 | Re: Who's going to pay for switching wireless and security system don't belong together... how good is a security system you can jam with $5 of parts from radio shack? | |
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| | | | Re: Who's going to pay for switching Or clip with a $2 pair of wire cutters. :/ | |
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| | AT&T Joins Verizon, Admits Landline Is Dead Are there any other countries which have completely eliminated POTS, and gone 100% broadband/VoIP/Cell ? | |
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|  FBGuyyippee ki yayPremium
join:2005-03-19 | Re: AT&T Joins Verizon, Admits Landline Is Dead not sure about 100% but when I was in egypt you couldn't find a landline to save your life. cell phones were everywhere.
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sbcglobal.net speedtest result 11/11/09 - 5256kbps | |
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| Reviews:
·Optimum Online
·Verizon FiOS
1 edit | said by RayS :
Are there any other countries which have completely eliminated POTS, and gone 100% broadband/VoIP/Cell ?
Expect some of those broadband rich European nations to be among the first... Netherlands, Sweden, ...then for asia.. think Korea..
even then, they'll be some shill company trying to hock the last of its kind horse and buggy landline. | |
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| | Then I want my money back Yes, Verizon and AT&T. You only built the copper network using MY DOLLARS. I want a refund. You built the network as part of Ma Bell, which was seriously heavily funded by the taxpayers. All the profits you've made over the last 30 years were based on that investment. Let's do this, you've gotten about $5 trillion of benefits over the 100 years that we've had phones. You pay a fine of just $3 Trillion, and you can stop supporting the infrastructure. Just because you USED to make money hand over fist, does not give you the right to keep making money in the future. So, if you want to give it up, that is YOUR RIGHT. However, I want MY MONEY BACK if you choose to go that route.
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Remember 1 in 4 people are retarded. 25% of Americans are Republican. Coincidence? I don't think so. | |
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|  DaveDudeNo Fear
join:1999-09-01
New Jersey
kudos:1
1 edit | Re: Then I want my money back Karl , for once we agree, Verizon gets handouts all the time. Why all of a sudden they dont want to support something we paid for. | |
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|  PathfinderDazed ConfusedPremium
join:2000-03-26
Mount Vernon, NY
·RoadRunner Cable
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by karlmarx:Yes, Verizon and AT&T. You only built the copper network using MY DOLLARS. I want a refund. You built the network as part of Ma Bell, which was seriously heavily funded by the taxpayers. All the profits you've made over the last 30 years were based on that investment. Let's do this, you've gotten about $5 trillion of benefits over the 100 years that we've had phones. You pay a fine of just $3 Trillion, and you can stop supporting the infrastructure. Just because you USED to make money hand over fist, does not give you the right to keep making money in the future. So, if you want to give it up, that is YOUR RIGHT. However, I want MY MONEY BACK if you choose to go that route. Any facts to back this up? | |
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| |  swaff
join:2000-07-16
Normal, IL | Re: Then I want my money back said by Pathfinder:said by karlmarx:Yes, Verizon and AT&T. You only built the copper network using MY DOLLARS. I want a refund. You built the network as part of Ma Bell, which was seriously heavily funded by the taxpayers. All the profits you've made over the last 30 years were based on that investment. Let's do this, you've gotten about $5 trillion of benefits over the 100 years that we've had phones. You pay a fine of just $3 Trillion, and you can stop supporting the infrastructure. Just because you USED to make money hand over fist, does not give you the right to keep making money in the future. So, if you want to give it up, that is YOUR RIGHT. However, I want MY MONEY BACK if you choose to go that route. Any facts to back this up? Of course not. because it ain't true
The Bell System was a regulated monopoly, guaranteed a rate of return from their customers, not taxpayers. I suppose if you were a customer at the time, those could be the dollars being referenced, but you did receive a reliable service in return. | |
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| | | FBGuyyippee ki yayPremium
join:2005-03-19 | Re: Then I want my money back the definition of reliable is still in commitee | |
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Chaldo
join:2008-03-18
West Bloomfield, MI | Switched to Vonage after 20 years AT&T This is why 2 months ago I switched to Vonage from AT&T landline before SBC/Ameritech/ what ever. I was with it for almost 20 years maybe more actully well (my dad) but I control all the technology in my house now. They kept on raising prices so I said forget it. 3 cell phones in the house on AT&T ill just switch the landline to Vonage. Now I am saving some money service is not as high quality as landlines but it works fine, and I also call international to a lot of countries with the world plan for free. | |
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 jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL | Ahem Karl, you forgot your Op/Ed tag again.
Happy New Year | |
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| | I hope Google will understand... I hope Google will understand that if there was ever a time to get involved in the process, that time is now. They are, viewed one way, the world's biggest information repository (okay, so technically speaking, they don't actually host most of the information, but still...) and certainly they ought to have an idea of what AT&T and Verizon are wanting, and how bad it would be if they got their way. I just think that Google (and really, any other company that's invested in the Internet) ought to realize that this is the time to act, not sit on the sidelines and let the big telco lobbyists, astroturf groups and sock puppets have their way.
Other companies that depend on the Internet also have a lot to lose - eBay, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple - all those companies will lose significantly if the big telcos and cable companies manage to keep most of the U.S. in the technological "dark ages" for decades to come. And by now all those companies ought to realize that the phone companies have learned to game the system to their advantage quite well, and if you just sit on the sidelines and don't offer a counterpoint (one that likely comes from a far more technologically enlightened position, I might add) you lose - and so do we all! | |
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| | | Re: I hope Google will understand... said by Hard_Drive:I hope Google will understand that if there was ever a time to get involved in the process, that time is now. They are, viewed one way, the world's biggest information repository (okay, so technically speaking, they don't actually host most of the information, but still...) and certainly they ought to have an idea of what AT&T and Verizon are wanting, and how bad it would be if they got their way. I just think that Google (and really, any other company that's invested in the Internet) ought to realize that this is the time to act, not sit on the sidelines and let the big telco lobbyists, astroturf groups and sock puppets have their way. Other companies that depend on the Internet also have a lot to lose - eBay, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple - all those companies will lose significantly if the big telcos and cable companies manage to keep most of the U.S. in the technological "dark ages" for decades to come. And by now all those companies ought to realize that the phone companies have learned to game the system to their advantage quite well, and if you just sit on the sidelines and don't offer a counterpoint (one that likely comes from a far more technologically enlightened position, I might add) you lose - and so do we all! It's nut up or shut up like I always say.Let's hope google,ebay,apple and etc.. do that and step it up | |
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| |  And When the Storms Come?
Cell phones, with their exposed towers, are highly susceptible to Acts of God. This will become a public safety issue soon. | |
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See 6 replies to this post |
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| | Can't wait I can't wait for my phone service that has failed once in the last 10 years (down line caused by wind) to degrade to the failure rate of my broadband service.
My broadband goes down at least once a month. To make matters worse it can't fix itself. IE I have to reboot the modem (if not also the computer) to get it up and running again. So unless you check all the time you can be out of service for hours when in fact the service was only down for a few minutes.
Oh and wireless phones are another alternative that fails in one form or another about every other day. Yesterday my wife had eye surgery and they got done earlier than expected. I walk in at the the pre arranged time and they say they had phoned me on the cell and when I didn't answer they left a message. Right then my phone beeps with the message... 45 minutes after they called. I know I didn't miss the call because there was no missed call notification. So the phone didn't ring when they placed the call and the message was delivered 45 minutes later. I pay $60 a month for that?
I think both cell and broadband providers have a lot of work to do on providing reliable service before I'll be happy about giving up my landline.
For $40 bucks a month for broadband and $60 a month for cell service the American public gets some pretty bad service compared to the $23 a month landline.
Woo hoo progress! | |
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| | give up landlines?????????? Oh no you don't. At the same time that AT&T and Verizon want to give up on land lines, we have to ask what will replace them for the under served?
Lets see, will Verizon or AT&T be willing to replace antique copper lines with modern coax or fiber optic in rural areas? The alternative is wireless, but wait, everyone in the wireless industry is well aware that a spectrum crunch has already occurred. And the wireless industry has already cast its eye on the OTA television industry's share of the already reduced spectrum among other potential spectrum grabs.
Well I have a suggestion to the FCC, tell the wireless industry they get no additional spectrum until 100% of America has broadband internet hard wired into every American home.That will give them an incentive to do their public duty. | |
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| Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
 ·US Cellular
| Re: give up landlines?????????? Oh no you don't. One note about the wireless spectrum crunch - in the less densely populated areas where it would be more cost prohibitive to replace or upgrade land lines there wouldn't be as many problems with not having enough spectrum available.
In some places it makes more sense to hardwire in others it makes more sense to use wireless. | |
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| | | Lets see I want to go from a reliable landline that never goes down even during a ice storm and you can actually understand people compared to wireless . My DSL (landline has been down maybe 2 times in 10 years) . Is it as fast as cable maybe not not but cable goes down a lot more than the phone or dsl does. Lets put everything over 1 medium. We are one good virus away from catastrophe and eventually someone will write one which will suck up all the bandwidth and you will have no internet or phone. Anyone I know who has phone over cable is always having problems and its always going offline. The real reason is ATT and or Verizon just don't want to support copper anymore and they want to put all their money into their crappy wireless services. We are probably slowing frying ourselves with all this wireless garbage. | |
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| | At&T Joins Verizon, Admits Landline is Dead? Sure, just like the internal combustion engine. How do you explain Frontier, Qwest and others not converting to FTTP? I live in a house I converted to FIOS. With a tenet who refuses to convert her copper POTS line. Dream on, the copper network won't disappear for a long, long time.... | |
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| | Wireless I can't get Wireless signal in my home and Wireless call quality is terrible compared to my landline.
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I get 29 MPG in my Toyota Highlander Hybrid! | |
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Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
| Let's Call Their Bluff Ok, if the telcos claim that 90% of the country has access to broadband, then lets call them on it. They can drop providing POTS service to all of their customers, but they must then provide "wired" broadband VOIP service to replace it. We could allow wireless substitution, or other broadband providers, but restrictions would be required.
However, one caveat to be placed over the entire change would be that the price of their POTS would have to be equal to or greater than the uncapped broadband + VOIP service to replace it. | |
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approval from:
envoid
| Dying pots serv not The problem is at & t and Verizon are still regulated by the Gov. and have to provide pot's service to everyone for 911. Where as cable company is not regulated to do that. The Gov. needs to put everybody on the same page. If cable company wants to provide dial tone ,then they need to play by the same rules. If att wants to get into the tv end , they need to play by the same rules. Until then, everybody cries foul! | |
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4 edits |  Much Ado About Nothing
Ten years from now AT&T and Verizon will bemoan the fact that they have designed such antiquated "broadband of the future" systems. TV content will eventually be sold by the content originator in a totally internet-based system. AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast at that time will, of course, insist that regulations be put in place to prevent such a thing from happening!
My theory may explain why the phone companies want to define "broadband" in the narrowest possible terms. Look at the state of radio. The RIAA has fought true "high-definition" radio: what we have in HD radio today is not true high fidelity but a semblance of it--often not even quite mp3 quality--and that is far from "high fidelity." The RIAA does not want radio stations to broadcast high-bit-rate digital signals because it would encourage people to "tape" off the air i.e., make digital copies (even though it is perfectly legal for people to do so)--if people could make copies of high quality broadcasts they would not need to buy CDs, SACDs, or even mp3s. The phone companies have a similar tiger they do not want to let out of the cage. That is one of the reasons they desire "usage caps" and usage-tiered pricing. If they truly provided an "always available" 100 Mbit/sec pipe into the internet for each subscriber, IP-based TV would become commonplace. Both cable companies and phone companies who have invested heavily in video infrastructures would then have their infrastructures become dinosaurs. No--best to limit the bandwidth and control what people do to preserve their short-sighted business models. The NAB does it in broadcasting--the phone and cable companies feel they should be able to do it also. Real progress will move at a glacial pace.
With true HD IP-based TV, and real high fidelity digital radio for that matter, the content provider would call the shots. What is currently happening with newspapers would then happen with radio and TV (it is already beginning with local TV--witness the current Fox-Time Warner dispute): the advertising dollar would be stretched thin. If anyone is able to create their own internet-based TV station . . . well, you get the picture (no pun intended). The RIAA, with the support of the NAB, has already muted many internet-based radios stations by imposing on them outrageously high "per song" copyright fees. Something similar may happen with IP-based TV. In the end, the stations that will survive will be the ones who provide the best content--or at least the content that the most people desire (not necessarily the "best" but certainly the most dummed-down). Those are the stations to which advertisers will gravitate. You don't think my theory is correct--let's have this discussion again in ten years!
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"Remember, Comrade, people who are willing to destroy an efficient telephone system may not be playing with a full deck." | |
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| dak70
join:2007-05-01
Warminster, PA | said by Alex G Bell:The phone companies need to realize that ultimately, perhaps within 10 years, they must exit the "tethered" hard-wired local phone and TV business and implement them entirely via the internet. How do you get Internet? Last time I checked my Internet connection is a "tethered" service. Delivering a cable system with 200+ HD channels, 50+MB of broadband and a voice line will require a tether for a long time. Yeah, I know WiMax is coming of age but it will not be able to supply the the bandwidth needed for the aforementioned services. | |
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VoIP needs intelligibility standards.
There was quite a bit more BS spouted too. Maybe AT&T just wants to sell off all their copper to a scrap dealer while the prices are still high. 
