Yes sir e. The times are changing to a new era. More telecoms ditch copper phone lines Switch leaves vulnerable areas that count on service By Peter Svensson Associated Press MANTOLOKING, N.J. — Robert Post misses his phone line. Post, 85, has a pacemaker that needs to be checked once a month by phone. But the copper wiring that once connected his home to the rest of the world is gone, and the phone company refuses to restore it. In October 2012, Super storm Sandy pushed the sea over Post’s neighborhood in Mantoloking, N.J., leaving hundreds of homes wrecked, and one floating in the bay. The homes on this sandy spit of land along the Jersey Shore are being rebuilt, but Verizon doesn’t want to replace washed-away lines and waterlogged underground cables. Phone lines are outdated, the company says. Mantoloking is one of the first places in the country where the traditional phone line is going dead. For now, Verizon, the country’s second largest landline phone company, is taking the lead by replacing phone lines with wireless alternatives. But competitors including AT&T have made it clear they want to follow. It’s the beginning of a technological turning point, representing the receding tide of copper wire landlines that have been used since commercial service began in 1877. The number of U.S. phone lines peaked at 186 million in 2000. Since then, more than 100 million copper lines have already been disconnected, according to trade group US Telecom. The lines have been supplanted by cellphones and Internet- based phone service offered by way of cable television and fiber optic wiring. Just 1 in 4 U.S. households will have a copper phone line at the end of this year, according to estimates from industry trade group US Telecom. AT&T would like to turn off its network of copper land lines by the end of the decade.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 00:20:47 +0000
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