[OT] Verizon/FairPoint sale (was: Comcast!?!?)

[Ben Scott]

On Nov 15, 2007 3:00 PM, Michael Costolo <michael.costolo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would it be worse?

  In two words: Yes.  Much.

> Couldn't some combination of wireless and VOIP make POTS
> redundant/unnecessary?  Doesn't it already?

  First of all, comparing POTS to just about anything else is just
really wrong.  POTS remains just about the most reliably telecom
technology in the world.  How many times have you picked up a POTS
landline and didn't get dial tone?  How many times has a cell phone
dropped a call?  I bet you can count the former on one hand, but the
later are innumerable.

  The equipment behind the copper plant is truly robust.  Everything
runs off batteries, all the time.  During a grid power outage, the
batteries just stop charging.  They have generators for longer outages
(typically 4+ hours).  And they have two sets of batteries, and two
sets of power distribution wiring in the building, and every piece of
equipment has two sets of power inputs.  The equipment itself is
usually quad-or-more-redundant.  You can loose an entire wall of the
building, and the CO keeps running.  It takes something like the CO
being literally washed away in a flood to knock it out.

  Further, ultimately, almost everything still depends on landlines.
Mobile wireless telephone towers?  Connected to the COs on leased
lines (T1, T3, etc.).  DSL?  That comes through the same copper plant.
 Cable Internet?  Still eventually feed from conventional leased lines
eventually.    911 service, including wireless 911, is heavily
dependent on the PSTN.  All these landlines are still largely the
responsibility of the ILEC (Verizon now, hypothetically FairPoint).

  Try to imagine the entire state of NH without any telephone service,
no 911, no Internet, and no mobile phones.  That's roughly what would
happen if Verizon just turned everything off tomorrow.  Cats and dogs
living together, mass hysteria, you get the picture.

  Believe me, it could be a *lot* worse.

  Of course, the state would probably step in and seize all that
property in the name of the public good, and force it to be operated,
at gunpoint, if need be.  But I'd *really* prefer if it didn't come to
that.  (I'm not kidding about the guns, either.  The PSTN is Critical
National Infrastructure.  Try messing with a CO sometime.  The FBI
will come down on you so hard you'll think you were born in prison.)

  Got it?  :-)

-- Ben