Home Phone Service Advice Needed

[launderess]

One of our landline telephones went out awhile back.

Took over two weeks to get a service call. In my parents day that never happened.

Happily for us the problem was with Verizon's equipment (a switching box somewhere down the street from our building), otherwise we would have had to pay for the service call.

Verizon union workers went out on strike awhile ago for about a week or so and then returned to work without a contact. They had been without one before the strike so there's something. IIRC they finally got a contract but it was weeks after the strike.

IIRC much of Verizon's profits now come from Internet, high speed Internet, cell/smart phone service and so forth. Landline business is IIRC becoming a loss leader for the company that once was part of the great Ma Bell.

When you dial "O" today or really for any sort of contact with Verizon here in NYC you may or may not get someone locally. It can be anywhere from Boston to parts of the South or Mid-west where the company has territory.

http://labornotes.org/2012/09/verizon-workers-queasy-deal

http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/controversial-new-verizon-contract-divides-union/

 

[NYCWriter]

Dialgizmo ...

"and a single Dialgizmo will convert all rotary sets deployed on the line."

Not always.

My Dialgizmo never worked on my line.

 

[NYCWriter]

"Neither of which are always true."

They're USUALLY true enough times that a "blanket statement" would not be entirely inappropriate.

 

[davey7]

I have AT&T for my LL and it's "OK" - I've had trouble with the connection being broken and it's usually the antique wiring from an original to the building phone box which is where the home run conduit to the units starts, it gets disconnected when other people have work done (there is a newer AT&T box next to it in addition to the one outside). I've been waiting for broadband to arrive in our area, parts of the neighborhood have it but not us. That way I can have a copper wire LL and high-speed internet. I don't want the cable company bringing more cable into my unit since concealing wiring is nigh-on impossible in my building. .

 

[mattl]

I felt a twing years ago when I dumped the land line for VOIP, but in the ensuing years I can't say I've missed the LL at all.  I have a cell so if the power is out no big deal, and I spend perhaps $100 a year on voip service, as compared to $40/mo to ATT previously.  No brainer.

 

[gusherb]

We still have a landline with AT&T but the reliability is pretty well gone at this point, it every so often would get a terrible hum and they'd come out and swap our copper pair with another. Now it's gotten to the point where it's been humming since mid June, took them 3 weeks to come out and fix it, then the problem just came back 3 days later. I called the technician back, haven't heard from him 2 days later (said he'd be out the next day) and now I've put in an order to go to "Digital Home Phone" from Comcast and see how that goes. We already have their internet and the neighbor uses their phone service all day every day for his work-at-home sales job and never has trouble. I do despise Comcast but as long as it WORKS and they don't screw up the billing I'm not touching it.

Once upon a time we had two POTS lines, and a "multi-ring" number where they assigned you a second number to one line and gave it a distinctive ring - we used this for a fax machine. The prices started going out the roof 3 years ago and so I switched our second line to Ooma (which btw has been great) and the multi ring number to Anveo (a BYOD VoIP provider, works great with the fax machine)

 

[NYCWriter]

Well ...

"I have a cell so if the power is out no big deal"

It IS a big deal when your phone loses its charge ... and the juice stops flowing from those cell phone towers.

Last time NYC had a major blackout, it took only about two hours for nearly everyone affected to eventually lose cell phone service.

 

[tolivac]

Relax on the cell towers-look at the base of them---I usually see an Onan genset there.Some cell sites have solar backup power along with the genset.Their reliability has drastically improved.A worry could be-like what happened in Haiti years ago-an earthquake destroys the infranstucture--cell and landlines.Internet,too.

 

[arbilab]

Apparently copper service is eroding and little effort is made to bolster it.

This building is 15yo, its alarms (fire, fallen-and-can't-get-up) and wifi are AT&T copper. The box is 30 feet off the NW corner. An AT&T truck is out there almost every day switching pairs trying to find ones that work. We had to hire security guards to monitor the interior while the services couldn't be restored for 2 weeks.

Even the AT&T cell towers in this region (decaying metro, little Detroit) are losing functionality. The same phone on the other side of the county worked 'fine' on the couple bars I could get down in a valley. Here, while I have all the bars lit up, it drops words, sentences, paragraphs, entire calls on an ongoing basis.

Several conclusions come to mind. One, that fundamental infrastructure we once took for granted has deteriorated like the Minneapolis I-35 bridge (the starkest example), the NYC water system that barely delivers more than it leaks, prolonged electric outages from weather or just 'system events'. Two, as might be anticipated, money chases money. I'll bet AT&T has no problem at all serving Cowboy Stadium across the county with cell and wifi. But why should they give a shatner what happens in a neighborhood that even Mcdonalds has abandoned? Three--or 2.5--that expanding emerging services takes absolute precedence over integrity of established services.

This is what happens when you let MBAs run everything. Trust me, I saw during the downfall of Dell and I've seen it everywhere since. They're only in it for the money. If your junk don't work, that's your problem for being on the wrong end of the curve. We'll still sell it to you with TV commercials. But you know that mishmash of microtext at the end you can't read? In there the lawyers have inserted boilerplate that invalidates everything the announcer promised you. You HAVE noticed that, haven't you?

 

[mattl]

Power outage really is no big deal. I do have a generator and a car both capable of either powering or charging the phone. For tho use without either you can pick up chargers for $10 that use AA batteries to charge or power a cell.

For most people it's not a problem to be without phone service for a day or two, if you have health issues you need to assess your needs with either an extra cell battery, generator, or pay for copper lines.

 

[davey7]

A few years ago when there were prolonged blackouts in New Hampshire (IIRC) the only people with phone service where those with LL's. The cell towers had either run out of battery back-up or their generators (assuming they had them) ran out of gas - I'm assuming many do not have gas lines to them (especially in areas where gas service is spotty like New England).

Another reason to keep old octopus furnaces is they will work (along with some steam and gravity hot water systems) with like a lantern battery for the thermostat and burner controls.

 

[cuffs054]

Pete speaks the truth! Love my Ooma. It has a neat call block feature that sends annoying calls far far away.

 

[revvinkevin]

 

 

I switched to Vonage (VoIP) some years ago for the larger included US and international calling areas for less $$$.   It's really nice to pick up the phone and call France, England, Japan, etc as if I'm calling down the street and for the same cost.   Plus 911 info is a non-issue with Vonage.

 

However while Ooma sounds similar to Vonage, it sounds like I could save $30 each month after it pays for itself in 3 - 4 months.   I'll have to look into this Ooma thing.

 

Kevin

 

[launderess]

Each of two or three blackouts we have had in NYC

That affected our area since we have lived here found us among the few with landline service. Of course we allowed neighbors especially those who were elderly and or had children access to which they were grateful.

After Sandy and other events that cause prolonged loss of power in areas of NYC it isn't long before persons start seeking out ways to recharge their stuff. Persons who lived above 30th Street after SS Sandy and or others who had power saw no end of friends and relations that not only wanted a hot meal but to charge their gear. Many businesses all over NYC stepped up and put out impromptu charging stations as well.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

In the blackouts of '65, '77 and '03 we never lost landline service. Practically no one did. The telephone company was/is powered with their own generators. That kept the landlines operational. During the '03 blackout, I loaned out some of my vintage phones to neighbors. Many by then had only cordless phones, which of course died when the power went out. I like most, lost cell phone service back in '03. Thank God for copper lines.

[this post was last edited: 7/17/2014-21:47]

 

[joe_in_philly]

I love Ooma, too. We don't use our home phone line very often, but I like having an alternative to using a cell phone. We don't subscribe to Ooma's premium service, so we pay about $3.50 a month to Ooma for the required taxes. It is nice having unlimited long-distance calling for free, and inexpensive international calling. I used to call my friend in Australia for less than four cents a minute, and it would sound like he's next-door. Of course now with FaceTime audio or other smart phone apps, you can talk to people anywhere in the world for free. I have Verizon FiOS Internet and TV.

 

[gusherb]

We now no longer use AT&T for our landline and use Comcast VoIP now. It effectively works identically to the POTS we used to have except the EMTA they gave us doesn't accept pulse dialing, so I ordered a Dialgizmo pulse to tone converter in order to keep my rotary phones dialing out. They don't supply a battery backup anymore either so I got an 8 hour battery from eBay for under 7 dollars.

We hardly use that line so all that is really noticeable is the phone bill going down and we won't have indefinite service during a power outage anymore.

 

[whirlaway]

Verizon

Sat morning I arose with a dead land line,I have DSL,the computer worked for 5min and died.I thought well I worked there 30years and still have rotary service with 3 302 sets I use all of the time.I got in the car since my neighbors were dead also! The telephones were dead,so I went to the hut that feeds us and there stood the most beautiful phone guy you ever saw,more about that later! They had a freak power surge that burned up almost every board in that hut! He took my number,altough I think he already had my number!!!! We were all in service by 2 in the afternoon.He even called me Sunday morning to see if my service was working,a couple of the new boards had failed.I invited him for coffee next time he was in my area! There is nothing like a goood land line!!!!!

 

[retropia]

Bobby, that is good to know you are still getting good service from your telephone repair man.

We've been talking about what to do with our remaining copper land line. It's a business line but anyone I want to talk to calls me on my cell, otherwise it is just telemarketing calls. I could switch it to an Ooma/VOIP service and save $55 a month.

However ... it is nice to have a real land line just in case. When the hurricane blew through a few years ago, our cell service was spotty, but the land line worked fine. The power was down in the area, which caused our cable internet service to go down, so our other "land line" using VOIP was also down.

I'm thinking I will switch my business line to a basic home land line service that ATT still offers, which should cut my monthly cost in about half. I'll lose my Yellow Pages listing, but that's OK. It will make it harder for the telemarketers to find me.

That way we can keep a copper line until ATT abandons that service.

 

[iej]

It's more about lack of regulation than technology

The major issue with the move towards IP-based telecommunications systems is that the regulators are not requiring the telcos to ensure that there is 'always-up service.' Traditionally, most telephone exchanges (switches/central offices) had pretty huge battery back up and most telcos tended to have diesel generators at key sites too should the power go down.

These buildings were mostly designed in the days of crossbar and step-by-step switching after WWII and during the cold war. They were also designed to house technologies that didn't really allow for much distribution of switching. They would typically use longer lines and fewer central offices.

As technology improved, the idea of distributed switching starts to emerge. So, by the late 1970s when digital telephone exchanges were popping up, one of the major advantages of them was that you could install more, smaller nodes, closer to the customers. This meant less complicated wiring systems (i.e. shorter lines) and easier upgrades as demand increased.

So, from the 1980s onwards you started to see what's referred to over here as "RCUs" (Remote Concentrator Units). Here in Ireland, the switches would have mostly been Ericsson AXE or Alcatel E10 equipment. The typical layout from the 1980s onwards was a local exchange with quite a large number of RCUs in individual suburbs/towns/villages all managed from a central location. These were linked back by fibre (or in the earlier days microwave) to their local main node.

The downside, is that they're often tiny units, sometimes only a few outdoor, weather proof cabinets, and their battery back up is pretty limited.

Then you'd the growth of mobile networks in the 1980s too.
Cellular coverage requires lots of distributed technology too. As the number of users and the expectations of perfect coverage went up, the networks added more and more microcells and picocells to fill in gaps in coverage and increase capacity. These sites are usually just on the sides of buildings, hidden in fake trees and generally camouflaged into the environment. In hard to cover areas like streets with high buildings, campuses, shopping malls etc, metro systems, tunnels, etc they'll add picocells which are not much bigger than your home WiFi hub. They're just a little panel on the wall.

The smaller these things get the less likelihood of battery backup. So, when the power goes down, you can be left with just the major towers on air which results in poor coverage.
If you ever do lose power and your mobile coverage goes down, switch to 2G and stand outside to get a signal. It's likely that your network's major locations are still on air as they typically have significant battery backup.

With the move towards VoIP replacing POTS for landlines, there are a few ways of providing it.

You can keep the copper wiring in place and just convert the central offices to IP technology. That's happening in a lot of places. However, the speed at which people are adopting other technologies is making the business case for retaining POTS central offices very difficult to justify.

For example, our local telco here in Ireland originally planned to place POTS/ISDN cards into the FTTC cabinets that they provide VDSL from and close central offices. However, people don't seem to want POTS service anymore and residential users are quite happily switching over to using IP phones and ATAs to connect to VoIP services without any need for line cards. I'm sure that's the same in most other countries too.

What we're seeing is a mixture of managed IP telephony services using home gateways (i.e. the type of stuff you plug into the back of the box your cable TV company or ISP provides). These can provide end-to-end managed VoIP and ensure full quality of service.

The other part of the market that's growing quite quickly is "Over the Top" VoIP services which just use the public Internet and have nothing to do with the ISP or telco. For many people this is perfectly adequate and as broadband speeds and reliability increase, it's a very viable alternative to services from telcos and cable cos.

Then you've got a huge shift in the way businesses are connecting their telephone systems. In the past they generally (here in Europe anyway) tended to use ISDN to connect to their PBX (office system). This is what allowed all the direct-inward-dial extensions and all of those things. Now, that's largely being replaced by VoIP technology mostly using SIP trunks.

Many small businesses are moving towards using cloud-based hosted PBXs which require no equipment on site at all. You just connect every extension to the internet and the whole thing is hosted on a soft switch somewhere else.

So, basically the entire voice telephony market is being turned upside-down and inside out.

...

The other aspect is that the telcos have no option but to retire PSTN/POTS switching equipment as the manufactures are no longer supporting it. You're talking about 1970s/80s technology that's reaching the end of its life.

In the USA and Canada most local landline companies were using 5ESS switches built originally by Western Electric / Bell Labs (now part of Alcatel Lucent) for AT&T, DMS 100 switches made by Nortel (no longer exists) or in some cases Ericsson's AXE platform (major European system) which is still supported.

In Europe, you've a similar scenario:

Ericsson AXE - by far the biggest digital TDM switching platform in the world, is moving towards being a 'soft switch'. The old gear is still supported, but they're pushing people onto new IP-based systems.

Alcatel E10 and S12 - Alcatel Lucent is also moving everyone onto IP and consider these systems "End of Life"

Siemens EWSD - Huge platform that's used in many European countries, also 'end of life'. Nokia Networks now owns the technology and are pushing users onto IP too.

In Britain, there's an even more serious problem. British Telecom's digital network is largely made up of a UK system called "System X" which was originally a government-driven project in the 1970s/80s that was delivered by a consortium of British telecommunications equipment markers : GPT, Plessey and STC. It ended up as part of Marconi's stable of products, but it was quite late to market and it never achieved export sales. Basically it's is only used by BT in the UK. Marconi vanished a few years ago and various bits of the company ended up in Siemens and Ericsson. However, the System X switching system didn't. The result is that it's basically being managed as 'end of life' and I would assume that BT will want to find an alternative solution as soon as possible and I know some of those switches are being replaced by IP-based technology. However, they're possibly maintaining dial tones for now.

Basically, to cut a long story short, PSTN/POTS service will not be around for more than another decade at most. The technology's literally dying out.

In most scenarios, large chunks of the POTS network have already been replaced with soft switches and IP-based systems. They'll eventually get down to ripping out local exchanges and that'll be the end of 100+ years telephony delivered over an analogue interface to your home.