AT&T DSL → [West] And in other news :

»www.tellusventure.com/bl ··· service/

"AT&T wants to rip out its copper phone networks in California and sell wireless voice and broadband service instead. Its lobbyists in Sacramento wrote a bill – assembly bill 2395 – that would give AT&T blanket permission to shut down regulated plain old telephone service and replace it with whatever kind of unregulated technology it deems most profitable.

For customers lucky enough to live in a high potential area – someplace dense enough with customers and cash to make wireline service sufficiently lucrative – that’ll mean voice over Internet protocol phone service running on one flavor or another of DSL broadband. Everyone else will have to make do with wireless phone and Internet service. In rural California, that’ll mean either via a slow and expensive mobile subscription or AT&T’s coming wireless local loop technology, which might or might not be as expensive – AT&T hasn’t revealed pricing – and will likely max out at 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload speeds."

Still think the AT&T gigapower "expansions" are not more fiber to the press???

AT&T does not want their wireline and what is going to happen is as soon as Frontier digests their latest wireline buy from Verizon, AT&T is going to sell their entire California wireline to the small Connecticut telco.

It is a done deal.

The thing that truly chaps my a$$ is that AT&T has made a killing merely by NOT maintaining and repairing their facilities, and that this has gone largely unnoticed by the populace - while small pockets of people in rural areas with no alternatives get shafted.

I'm in an area where the only reliable service (and I am using the word reliable here very loosely) is POTS, brought in on ancient copper (which also delivers my DSL - most days two cans and a string work faster). Cell phone service is sketchy here at best, so without traditional landline service during an emergency, we're in serious trouble.

Just imagine how much is angers me that they have data caps on last mile DSL. That is the main reason why i got rid of them.

Yes, I'm one of the lucky people who get to pay extra, on top of the extra that I currently pay, for the privilege of horribly slow service over outdated facilities that they refuse to repair and maintain.

They're not going to sell off most of these areas. Regulators will let them shut the wireline off. Selling creates a competitor to the wireless services T wants to use as a replacement. Shutting off the network does not. Rural customers will move to the wireless platform or do without. Some states have already removed the Provider of Last Resort rules and as such wireline can be turned off, but they haven't pulled that trigger yet.

It would be foolish from a business sense NOT to sell off the unwanted wireline regardless even if it creates a competitor or not. Those properties are still worth a lot of money. Holding on to unwanted assets does not reflect well on a company balance sheet. No, they are going to hand those networks to come body else. AT&T wireless already has wireline competitors in areas they sold off. Connecticut is the example.
AT&T and Verizon are Frontier's biggest customers who use the Connecticut telco's network as back haul and exchanges to connect to the giants' wireless towers.

You keep holding out hope... Properties that are bought, paid for, and depriciated out will be used for thier incoming fiber and converted to hold wireless assets. They could still choose to do bonded vdsl out to 5500 ft and sever the rest of the cable beyond that. The key here is getting out from under POLR rules that will let them say no to pots customers. The telco act of 96 created this mess. It foresaw a great competitive market with new players entering. What it did not plan on was areas where no one entered the open market and the incumbent decided it was not legally bound to stay.

and screwed the public in the end.

You should blame the telco act of 96. That is what created this mess. You went from a system were you had to provide service, to an open market where you can't make someone stay and offer services they deem not profitable. Can you make the local grocery store stay open if they were the only store in town? This is the same deal. The feds made the telcos a for profit business, they no longer have any obligation to serve. That was tossed out with the loss of rate of return and monopoly status by the feds. Yes the customers may have to choose something they don't want, but I don't see any other businesses selling low return items they don't want to sell.

Rural Electricity
"Loss Leader" items at Retail or Bar/Restaurant

They still have their monopoly in most rural locations. PoCos are still mostly monopolies. And as far as I see most electric companies still want to sell electricity. T is the one trying to get out of selling their anchor product called POTS. . Loss leader items are sold for a specific purpose. The retailer is intentionally selling them to get you in the door. So you can't say they don't want to sell those products.

I can absolutely say they don't want to sell those products. Some Car or Furniture dealers, sales personnel are disciplined/suspended/fired for selling the "Loss Leader" item instead of upselling!

And even a silly grocery store "Loss Leader" item, be it milk, bread, butter, steak, whatever -- yeah, they don't want anyone to come in and JUST buy that. So yeah, they don't want to sell the products. The metric is known as "Average Ticket/Receipt" -- it is certainly managed in the Retail world. If only low priced/loss leader items are dominating, that Store isn't gonna last long, or at least the Staff won't

Just like AT&T really doesn't want to sell just a POTS line...

Any business that sells loss leader chooses to sell them freely. They can choose not to sell them, but they don't. They don't have a gun held to their head.

No one held a gun to AT&T's head to Invent, build, and operate a POTS network. They entered into the agreements willingly

If they succeed at getting out of those agreements/commitments, more power to them. Until then, it is what it is

Businesses make Business decisions that aren't always about that dollar and cent for that individual. There is a difference, Micro and Macro

I almost forgot another industry:
Airlines and flights to small markets/airports with very low demand for the flights
Also:
Comcast and the Low Income Broadband commitments from the Comcast/NBC Merger

Long story short, there are plenty of examples of businesses selling low return, if not at loss, items they don't want to sell. Not just AT&T

Sorry guys, but what the writer of this article says I believe. The California PUC may not allow AT&T to shut off the legacy copper, but AT&T could come back and say "we will sell it"
and look at the potential buyers : CenturyLink, Fairpoint, Frontier, Windstream
and then there are the smaller ones : Sonic, DSL Extreme, Toast and maybe Earthlink
OR AT&T could spin off its entire wireline into a separate company altogether (from AT&T wireless) and sell it by chunks or as a whole. Plenty of scenarios of how this could play out.

An AT&T CWA employee told me that AT&T is fed up dealing with last mile wireline customers. He is made it very clear to me that they do NOT want the last mile wireline anymore and by 2020 all of it will be sold off. So IT IS happening. I'm hoping it is Frontier or Windstream.

CenturyLink is still dealing with issues associated with the acquisitions of Embark and Qwest. Fairpoint is in talks of a possible sale or buyout OR they could grow with more acquisitions.

»www.wsj.com/articles/fro ··· 23431602

I also read an article that I'm looking for where it mentions that former Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter negotiated with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson years ago the Connecticut the takeover of the AT&T wireline assets that happened in late 2014 and they are still talking about more acquisitions.

Bottom line if AT&T doesn't want the wireline, give it to someone who does. Wireless is not a substitute for wireline. We cannot do without fixed line broadband.

They won't even pay their agents for a POTS line. I deal with mostly SMB's and that's what they typically use. So they give their money to Time Warner Cable, or an AT&T Reseller. In the latter case AT&T is still stuck delivering the service, they just make less money for it. Sounds like a great plan.....

This +1000 times.

Wireless is extremely unreliable and is prone to dropped connections consistently. Believe me I've used Verizon and other mobile hotspots for internet on a laptop, connection drops are almost constant. The best option is internet plugged directly from the computer/laptop into the modem, that's what fixed line broadband should be.

As I said before on these forums, CenturyLink, Fairpoint, Frontier and Windstream are all bad companies, based on their track records. You even provided a snippet of the CEOs faces and the money they've accumulated for being a part of those companies.

You mean how everyone says every telco is bad?

Just you wait. After the Frontier April 1st acquisition from Verizon is completed there will be another announcement. AT&T is just itching to rid itself of last mile wireline. There will be another "agreement" and Frontier will take over AT&T's wireline operations in another huge state (hopefully it is California). All of you that think they are investing in this so-called "gigapower' are kidding yourselves. For all we know, all the fiber that AT&T has laid down is backhaul/backbone for network redundancy to the cellular towers and has very little to do with the legacy wireline they still control.

Yep, all true. However, what does it say when these 4 companies provide better service than AT&T? Tells me a lot.

Pray they don't go the seperation route. The new company won't have the financial backing to be much better than fairpoint. I heard today that T is looking to reduce the workforce by about 30%. I didn't hear a timeframe on that though. My bet is POTS is gone no later than 2020 and the xDSL product that will be left will cost more than most will spend in an effort to move off the wireline. You keep holding on to that hope of a sale.... I don't see it. Randall has written off the wirline side. He has no interest in a sale that will compete against his LTE dream network.

I'm just looking at past AT&T business deals. Look at Connecticut for example. It is well known that AT&T (as well as Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobil) still serves that state with cellular wireless service despite AT&T's sale of their entire wireline operations to Frontier. Former Frontier CEO Maggie Wilderotter has publicly stated that she and Randall Stephenson negotiated that deal years ago before finally closing at the end of 2014. So the possibility of another deal like this is not far fetched. Remember, Frontier wants these networks because they know that wireless is not a substitute for wireline.

Wilderotter and now the current Frontier CEO Dan McCarthy have also said that AT&T and Verizon are their biggest customers. The MA Bell giants pay Frontier (and other fixed telecom/broadband providers) to use their network as middle mile and backhaul to deliver services.

Stephenson may not have a choice as public officials may force him to sell off the unwanted wireline as a condition of his desire to want a full wireless network at least here in California. The man is many things but one he is not is stupid. Stephenson knows that these copper assets are still worth a lot of money. It would not make financial sense for AT&T to simply shut off the unwanted copper and still hold onto the properties while paying taxes for them. That also does not reflect well on any company's balance sheet. Either you convert the assets to utilize for something else or transfer them to another company that will make use of them. In these two scenarios either way you come out making a profit. That makes sense even from a business standpoint.

Wait for AT&T to have a big expense from a merger or buying a huge amount of spectrum and they will use Frontier like a "purchase eraser" on a credit card so that they can hide the effect that this has on earnings. Wall Street Analysts fall for it every time, or maybe they think that everyone who lives in an underserved area should move to San Francisco. Frontier wins from this too because they can momentarily look like they aren't bleeding customers to death by buying a fresh crop of them.

How ironic as there's another spectrum auction coming up. This is NO coincidence.

As I'm writing this there is/was a big Frontier outage in the Northeast. Whether it has something to do with the acquisition or not, I don't know.

What I do know is that we're sick of paying premium prices for such lousy service. My ISP has absolutely no service available on the weekends, and thankfully I have cellular service because if I needed to call in for an emergency and my ancient, corroding POTS isn't working (TDS says I have to keep POTS to get DSL) I am screwed.

You and I both know that these copper assets are purely being used to squeeze as much money from them as possible. My DSL hasn't changed in ages, in fact people around me have said it hasn't changed in over a decade. And now with things like 4K, new consoles (Sony will be releasing a virtual reality console along with an upped PS4 that supports 4K late this year), new streaming options, cloud saves etc etc etc people in underserved areas such as mine are being left behind. NONE of those options will be available because the internet is much too slow to even attempt to utilize those features.

With Frontier's debt rising, this can only mean a bad thing.

I agree with you 100% HOWEVER there is G.Fast which is coming this year AND ISPs will be forced to upgrade their networks to meet these demands.

Forced to upgrade? I don't think so. G.Fast can get up to 150mbps with lab grade copper and tested in the lab environment. Most of the copper out will not be able to support that speed unless upgrade. ISPs dont want to spend money to upgrade that copper. If they did want to upgrade, they would have done so already. Plus it will take years before G.Fast is implemented properly and fully because ISP's are slow as F when it comes to upgrades. G.fast most likely will become available to people who have newer copper and such. Most places will most likely not be able to ge tit.

It doesn't matter what you think. AT&T and Frontier are currently testing G.Fast in their laboratories.

»about.att.com/newsroom/a ··· dus.html

»www.fool.com/investing/g ··· -to.aspx

Both companies have confirmed that the technology does in fact work. Distance being an issue as with all DSL yet it can be added to the VDSL that Frontier is currently deploying to many areas for their customers and this is part of the "gigapower" that AT&T is deploying.

G.Fast has already gotten regulatory approval from the FCC. So like anything else, these companies are deploying it where they see the most profit. Other areas will come later.

HA, you overestimate these ISPs. Keep on hoping though.

NO, I'm actually underestimating them. What I see is certain assets changing hands from one to another. Telecoms fearing customer defecting and public pressure is going to force necessary upgrades.

I go by the track record of past acquisitions and how it will play out today and in future business deals.

For example : "Verizon began negotiations to purchase long distance carrier MCI in 2005. MCI accepted the company's initial $6.75 billion offer in February 2005, but then received a higher offer from Qwest Communications. Verizon increased its bid to $7.6 billion (or $23.50 a share) which MCI accepted on March 29, 2005." When that negotiation fell through compounded with other customer problems, insider trading irregularities, and government request refusals, Qwest then accepted a merger from CenturyTel. The company changed its name to CenturyLink and has previously acquired Embarq (2009), Qwest (2010) and then Savvis (2012).

Look, the bottom line is that AT&T and Verizon want completely OUT of the responsibility of dealing with last mile wireline customers so they are selling off those networks.
Eventually all of Verizon's wireline is going to be sold off to Frontier and Windstream (with a good chance Fairpoint buying a chunk of it too).
AT&T is doing the same and at some point CenturyLink is going to buy out a good portion of T's wireline assets. Who knows? Maybe Frontier and Windstream may come along and buy some as well.
There's also the possibility AT&T can turn around and spin off it's wireline into a separate company all on their own just as Windstream did with Communications Sales & Leasing.

What I do know is that Frontier is working very closely with the U.S. government. That tells me that no matter what happens, the federal government is not going to allow Frontier to implode under the debt they currently have. AT&T and Verizon are also customers of FTR and the giants depend on this growing telecom's backbone to deliver their services as evidence pointed out of the massive issues and problems in the latest three large state acquisition. Look at Florida alone. The cutover happened and both AT&T and Verizon's cellular services were affected.

Service from ALL these providers is going to get even worse before it improves. That's just the nature of the beast.