FCC: Sandy Took Out 25% of U.S. Cell Towers → Re: Wired phone system

I'm curious to know the percentage of wired systems that also went down. It wouldn't surprise me if that number was near 25% as well. Cell sites rely on wired backhaul connections to central offices, data centers, etc. A tree falling on a overhead lines are pretty nondiscriminatory as to whether it's cable, telephone, power, fiber, etc or some combination of all of the above. There were also numerous flooded COs and data centers that had affected wired services and would also trickle down to affect cable and cell service as well.

My family just went to FIOS and were without phone service in the promised eight hours. And I expect they'll be down for quite a while - completely unreachable.

They just migrated from underground copper service. Know why? Because Verizon had no interest in fixing their copper service. One phone line that hasn't worked at all in months and another that was unusable due to an extremely loud buzzing.

So basically, telecoms don't want to pay for reliability and they're doing everything they can to get out of it. Maybe, just maybe, this will be a wake up call on that front.

Verizon is forcing fiber in my area too. In most cases people want the fast internet and TV service and the phone goes along for the ride. (this applies to Cable co. phone too) . The days of the phone being dependable are quickly becoming a memory of years past. For those that say the tree can fall on the old copper land line as well thats true but in most cases a neighbors phone would still work . Back to the fiber (FiOS) 8 hour battery backup in a several day outage its just not going far and many homes lack a genny. Same issue with cable phone if it has battery backup at all.

But what percentage of landlines are overhead anymore? Even in my small rural location they have buried the cables.

Around here, a ton. Residetial neighborhoods built in the last 35 years or so are mostly underground. But between those and what is considered "downtown" in my city, it's mostly aerial still. Out in the country, unless a developer has created a neighborhood and buried the line, most country houses on rural roads are also aerial. And regardless of age, many of the trunk lines are still aerial.

This article says the wired system faired better than wireless.

"Outages for landline phones are said to be much less widespread."

»bit.ly/TXqfqg

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So basically, telecoms don't want to pay for reliability and they're doing everything they can to get out of it. Maybe, just maybe, this will be a wake up call on that front.

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No offense but the 'Wake-up Call' has been out (and mostly ignored) for several years now. They neglect the copper plant in order to force people to FIOS and wireless... some people defend them vigorously claiming copper is a dead technology and no one is on it anymore anyway. This is a direct result of the PSC relaxing rules on POTS to the point where it is basically unregulated.