
The beginning of the end for copper wire - rmason
https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2017/11/20/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-copper/
======
cperciva
Highly relevant quote:

 _At one time, 80% of AT &T's capital value was the copper in the local loops.
AT&T was then, in effect, the world's largest copper mine. Fortunately, this
fact was not widely known in the investment community. Had it been known, some
corporate raider might have bought AT&T, terminated all telephone service in
the United States, ripped out all the wire, and sole the wire to a copper
refiner to get a quick payback._

\-- Andrew S. Tanenbaum, _Computer Networks_

~~~
olympus
It is likely that someone did realize this, did the math on the labor costs to
pull all the wire up across the country, and realized it wouldn't actually be
profitable. There are guys that track individual ships across the ocean to
decide what/when to trade, I doubt _everyone_ missed the value of ATT's
physical assets.

~~~
cperciva
I don't think that Tanenbaum was being completely serious. The point is to put
the value of that copper (and the cost of replacing it in the event that it is
damaged) into perspective.

~~~
andymcsherry
He certainly wasn't. If you read his political blog ([http://electoral-
vote.com/](http://electoral-vote.com/)), you'll find this sort of sarcasm is
his hallmark.

~~~
cperciva
Right, my extreme understatement was my British sense of humour coming
through. I was forgetting that HN has people whose only exposure to Tanenbaum
is via the Linus-Tanenbaum debate (or possibly not even that) and for whom his
sarcasm and my characterization of it would be less obvious.

My favourite Tanenbaumism, while I'm on the topic: _Aircraft carriers are
modular. If a toilet gets clogged, it doesn 't start launching nuclear
missiles._

~~~
dfc
The quote would be so much better if the subject were submarines instead of
carriers.

~~~
cperciva
Perhaps... but the non-modular software equivalents of aircraft carriers
routinely _do_ launch metaphorical nuclear missiles despite not being intended
to ever have that functionality.

~~~
abysmalfitzg
I do agree that aircraft carriers have stronger claims to being British :)

------
ztjio
It seems like a lot of commenters don't understand the problem. The issue is
not about whether that copper wire can be useful. It's not about whether there
exist alternatives to provide in places where the copper is too expensive to
maintain.

The point is that regulations previously required the telco provide an
alternative service that works just as well as the existing copper before they
are allowed to stop maintaining the copper. But that is no longer the case as
of this vote.

Now when the telco doesn't want to pay to maintain the copper they can simply
do nothing at all, which absolutely will leave people without any form of
telecommunication in some areas.

~~~
lucio
Then that will be a good market for a startup, or other players. Are the
telcos obliged to provide you with telecommunication?

~~~
charliesome
In other parts of the world, yes.

Telstra in Australia is bound by the Universal Service Obligation, for
instance: [https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Telco/Carriers-and-
service-...](https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Telco/Carriers-and-service-
providers/Obligations/universal-service-obligation-obligations-i-acma)

This is an area where it's critically important to regulate the market to make
it actually work for the people, not just profit margins. If the service
providers were not obliged to provide service to people in remote areas at the
same price as everyone else, no service provider would.

~~~
Banthum
I don't have an established opinion here, just a question.

What's the rationale for forcing people who live in densely populated areas to
subsidize those who live in remote areas this way?

Why don't we subsidize them for, say, gasoline as well, for their longer
travel distances?

~~~
abalashov
The overriding social policy objective isn't to effect urban-to-rural
subsidies per se, but to provide certain types of basic infrastructure
universally — and it just so happens that the unit economics point toward a
wealth from urban to rural areas as a means of accomplishing that.

To the best of my understanding, the consensus around this formed out of the
Depression and was bolstered subsequently by post-war thinking. The idea was
that we as a society should be able to make certain social guarantees of
living standard and access to services.

Lots of things gave rise to that strain of thinking across the Western world,
some of which were in response to specifically American conditions, others
not. To the extent that it was influenced by the same kinds of currents that
gave rise to the Western European welfare states, there was a pattern of
concern over the ways in which savage inequalities between country and society
perpetuated intergenerational poverty, which was in turn exploitable by
demagogues and populists. There was a time in American history when the
society was moving in the same general political direction as Europe as far as
universal social benefits, and while the trend was unquestionably weaker here,
it give rise to Medicare and Medicaid and other LBJ War on Poverty-era
initiatives. Another, less acknowledged motivation was to defeat the allure of
the Soviet model; revolutionary Bolshevism was big on redressing the
historical gap between the sophistication and modernity of the city vs. the
backward depression of the country, and universal literacy, universal
electrification, universal medical infrastructure, etc. were widely touted
goals. And of course, this factor was even more pronounced among the European
social democracies.

The more locally American consideration was most likely that telephone service
should be folded, together with farm price supports, into the overall package
of stabilising subsidies to the critical agricultural sector. This was thought
necessary to cushion them against a repeat of the acute economic devastation
of the Depression, the Dust Bowl, etc. Telephone access was essential to
economic development and automation in the twentieth century in the same way
that Internet access is regarded to be now, and was practically important for
farmers as a means of getting their products to market.

Last but not least, participation in the social bargain of universal service
was generally a condition of being granted some sort of natural monopoly
status, as for example with electrical utilities. The same general thinking
was extended to the telephone, since AT&T did, after all, monopolise the local
loop in most of the country for much of the twentieth century.

------
agjacobson
“I don’t envision AT&T and Verizon tearing down huge amounts of copper in
towns immediately.“ That’s not the point. When failures occur, they stop
fixing the wires and send you a letter telling YOU what your new mode of
service is, or nothing. There is no tearing down. The unsupported wire is left
to rot or be salvaged at their convenience.

~~~
killjoywashere
The term we used was "abandoned in place".

------
JackFr
I'm in an apartment building in NYC. While a new service elevator was being
installed, the elevator guys cut my phone line 3 times, and 3 times Verizon
came out to fix it, at no cost to me. However after the third time, the
building management refused to allow copper wire service to continue in the
building. It turns out I was 1 of only 2 apartments which hadn't already moved
to a cable/internet/phone package from one of three available providers.

It annoyed me to have to switch, but ultimately it turned out to be cheaper,
even after the initial contract expired.

~~~
justin66
> the elevator guys cut my phone line 3 times

I would be a little concerned about the safety of that elevator.

~~~
oh_sigh
Hard to tell. The phone line may have been wired incorrectly or poorly which
required the tech to do that

~~~
justin66
A POTS telephone line, which is what we're talking about here, can handle
being cut and reconnected without a fuss. It would appear the elevator guys
did not notice what they had done or did not understand its importance.

~~~
oh_sigh
I agree. But if a field tech knows that a low voltage line is incorrectly in
his work space and that someone will fix it if he does cuts it, then the tech
may just cut it and let someone else deal with the problem.

------
abalashov
Another important goal of this strategy, given relatively short mention in the
article,

> _allows the telcos to eliminate old copper wholesale services like resale._

is to cut CLECs out of the circuit game, to the extent they still sell
T-circuits and (more likely) Ethernet transport over telco copper through the
UNE
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_network_element](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_network_element))
facility).

Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TA96), UNE rules have required
incumbents to lease portions of their physical plant to CLECs at regulated
rates. These do not apply to fiber. Making it impossible for CLECs to ride
portions of their network to compete with them has been a major goal of
pulling out copper, and has often led to it being pulled out more aggressively
than it otherwise would be.

------
bluedino
AT&T has basically been bullying customers out of their POTS lines for the
last few years. Instead of paying, saying $34.95 for a line they'll increase
it to $89 or $135 _per line_.

Then they'll sell you a 'bundle' with a cellular phone or tablet with data
plan at a lower price than your old rate for just the old analog line alone.
Not sure how the math works out.

Since the contract is up after a year, then you have start a new bundle or pay
up. They're selling WebEx, Office 365...everything.

~~~
asmithmd1
Luckily phone companies cannot do this. Because AT&T was granted a monopoly,
each state has Public Utility Commission that sets the rate the AT&T "Baby
Bell" phone companies can charge:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utilities_commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_utilities_commission)

~~~
abalashov
A lot of times, the process looks more like:

\- AT&T declares the rate it will charge in its [Red State] PSC tariff filing;

\- [Red State] PSC stamps it.

But yes, it is certainly true that they cannot just charge capricious and
whimsical rates that change daily at their pleasure, or anything like that.

~~~
twunde
You can remove the red state. It applies to blue states as well for telecom
and energy

~~~
dsfyu404ed
This. Nobody has a monopoly on corruption and back room dealing.

~~~
thenewwazoo
Of course not, but one of the two major parties has absolutely made such
things one of their policy planks. Don't make a false equivalency.

------
anotherjesse
The point is sometimes copper connections are the only options for voice and
data. And now ATT and friends can stop servicing rural / small communities.

I live in a small community an hours drive from San Francisco. There is only
ATT DSL. (no cable, only a couple cell services and none at all for some -
including myself - due to the hills and valleys)

I am lucky and have DSL (5Mbps, and most of the time really 2Mbps, barely any
upstream and it slows the downstream to a crawl when using it - example:
watching youtube on 240p setting freezes when checking your email).

Many in my town have been without home internet for years. And even if you
have cell coverage, the 10G of tethered data per month (that is what Verizon
"unlimited" is) - can be eaten away in a day by a person not realizing their
computer is updating or watching netflix on 720p.

There was once a healthy ecosystem of local ISPs. the big players killed them
and now those healthy ecosystems will need to grow back. But it will be
painful for those who have to go through networking withdraw.

~~~
blaisio
I know it's not entirely the town's fault because sometimes people make
mistakes, and hindsight is 20/20, but some of that is the fault of the local
government. Houses without solid internet access are way less valuable on the
market. A lot of local governments are filled with people who have no idea
what they're doing and end up really hurting their community. So if this is
bothering you, you should get involved.

------
chmaynard
The FCC chairman appears to be listening only to corporate lobbyists. I
consider this to be a dereliction of duty, but of course Trump thinks
otherwise. As long as Trump is in power, the rules are going to keep changing
in favor of corporate interests. Those of us who oppose the new regime at the
FCC need to start thinking about what economic tools we can use to discourage
telecoms from taking advantage of FCC rule changes that we think will harm
internet freedom and the common good.

~~~
alsetmusic
White House petition:

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/we-people-call-
res...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/we-people-call-resignation-
fcc-chairman-ajit-varadaraj-pai)

~~~
MertsA
Unfortunately it seems like the Trump administration doesn't even bother
responding nowadays.

------
maltalex
Pardon the possibly ignorant question, but what do the telecom companies have
to gain by destroying their own infrastructure? I feel like I'm missing
something about the US telecom market here.

Aren't these companies making a profit on this infrastructure? Are they
selling more profitable services and they want users to switch over? Are the
maintenance fees that high?

~~~
pipio21
You can put tens of thousands of copper lines communications in just a single
optical cable.

An optical cable is extremely small, in fact, most of the cable is just
mechanical reinforcement.

Tens of thousands of copper fibers does not only means lots of cables with
lots of devices that could fail, with lots of interference. It means that if
something goes wrong, it it very hard to identify the problem or even to have
the space to access the problematic cable.

It also means that what used to take a dedicated culvert now could be done
with a single cable. So infrastructure prices go extremely low as you only
need to bury a small pipe and you gain a lot of space in old infrastructure.

Copper actually rust if exposed to elements. For it not rusting you need to
use things that actually degrade or pollute the environment a lot.

An optical line is as inert as it could be, does not degrade over time, does
not have EM interference.

You already have all the necessary optical line infrastructure under roads or
in powerlines. The only thing you have to update are the optoelectronics
terminals and repeaters.

~~~
vvanders
Yes, there's some advantages however some services don't work(alarms, etc) on
fiber.

~~~
jessaustin
Yes the wired alarm business refuses to leave the 1970s. Unfortunately
sometimes regulations force us to pay through the nose for their outdated
shit.

------
mrmondo
While the Australian right wing govt scrapped all the fibre to the home work
that was underway and decided that copper from the node to the house was a
great upgrade. The internet in Australia is so bad I had significantly better
in New Zealand a decade ago.

~~~
walshemj
FTC Fibre to CAB and using existing coper for the drop to the house makes
sense as you can get good performance with VDSL over 20MBS at a 2K yards

~~~
jackvalentine
This chart suggests at 1800m you can expect below 20mbps

[https://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/2013/chart-bt-
fttc-...](https://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/2013/chart-bt-fttc-
vdsl2-speed-against-distance)

Which is both slower than the fibre that had already been planned, and slower
than the then incoming government's "25mbps for everyone by end of 2016"
promise (which they missed).

It also doesn't have a good cheap upgrade path and assumes that the copper is
good and doesn't need to be replaced (it isn't, and it does in many places).

~~~
walshemj
And does the average consumer need more than 20MBS and more to the point be
willing to pay for it.

Some of the more extreme claims that we all need GB speed links don't make
sense its like saying every house/flat needs a 56Kv 3 phase power supply.

~~~
jackvalentine
> And does the average consumer need more than 20MBS and more to the point be
> willing to pay for it

The most commonly purchased NBN service in 2016 is 25mbps Down 5mbps up. (51%)
and 14% of customers buy 100/40: So yes to both questions.

And that’s 2016. Why skate to where the puck is rather than where it’s going?

------
gerbilly
Man we're getting to be so cheap.

In Canada we stopped minting pennies because copper was too expensive.

Also those pex pipes they install in houses are probably popular because
copper is expensive.

What's next, the return of aluminum wiring?

We had a week long blackout here a few years ago, my wall phone running off
copper twisted pair was the only electrical thing working in the house.

I was glad, because I had better things to do than line up at starbucks to
charge my cellphone like everyone else was doing.

Remember that ancient looking phone Adama was always shouting into on
Batllestar Galactica? Maybe they were onto something.

That ship survived because it was the oldest ship in the fleet.

~~~
RyJones
you're right: one advantage to PEX is price of PEX itself. Other advantages:
easier to install, no sweated joints, easy to color code, of no value to meth
addicts. No sweating lowers the fire risk (which tbh is very low, but non
zero).

I suspect even if PEX cost 5x copper tubing, the TCO for PEX would still be
lower over the lifetime of the plumbing. Shipping and moving around a spool of
PEX is much easier than monkeying with a load of copper tubing.

I wish the US would join Canada in dropping the penny.

~~~
gerbilly
I'm not so sure about pex though. Seems like a cheap replacement to copper
pipe.

There have been defects causing lots of water damage. Plus I'm not sure i want
my drinking water sitting in plastic all day picking up whatever chemicals
they used to make the pipe.

Copper is naturally antibacterial, and just seems safer to me, given that
we've been using it for decades.

------
exabrial
The article brings up DSL, but I thought DSL was a short haul technology (you
have to be pretty close to a branch office or something)? Would it really
affect rural customers anyway?

I'm also curious if the newer faster fiber technologies are sort of
"subsidizing" the carrier's copper business.

~~~
maxerickson
They put in cabinets/huts and run it from there.

------
coding123
Its silly to think that copper itself is going away simply because the phone
system won't be using much of it anymore, almost all electricity from AC to DC
wires run over copper and various alloys.

~~~
ztjio
This isn't about all copper wire. It's using copper to refer to the old copper
wire based POTS.

------
thecybernerd
This is exactly what Verizon did to parts of the NE after Hurricane Sandy.
They provided CDMA/LTE based pots services in areas in which they didn't feel
it was economical to rewire with fiber.

~~~
ztjio
The point is that they won't have to do that. They won't have to do anything.
They will be allowed to simply leave such people without an alternative if
they want.

------
JosephHatfield
Shortly after I moved into my current place, I wanted to switch to the most
basic copper-based landline service available, and I had to work through a
series of six service reps and managers before someone would even acknowledge
that such a plan was available. Since then, I get monthly mailings and
quarterly phone calls from them strongly encouraging me to sign up for some
fiber-based service. So far, I've resisted, but I fear this ruling may signal
the beginning of the end of my inexpensive, reliable, phone line.

------
rmason
This really hits home for me. I'm using a DSL modem and still have landline
phone that is far more reliable for me than my cell phone.

~~~
distances
How does unreliability show itself with a cell phone? My data isn't always
flowing perfectly, but can't remember problems with calls since 2000 or so.

~~~
rmason
Two reasons basically:

1\. I needed a separate box at home tied to my wifi to even get a signal on my
phone. Thankfully after switching to Google Fi and a Pixel phone I no longer
need the box.

2\. If I'm making a business call and making the sale depends on a clear
connection that will not drop the landline phone still wins out.

~~~
ams6110
Republic Wireless will automatically place and receive calls over your home
(or any connected) WiFi. Works great for me as I get barely 1 bar of cell
signal at home.

------
Zenst
Certainly an opportunity for VOIP services and a router with a PSTN connection
so you can plug in your existing phone will work out as a perfect solution.
Such routers been around for ages, some even have DECT built in.

One avenue that could be taken by the companies to mitigate any loss of voice
service. Customer would be just changing the point they plug the phone in,
socket wise and that would be that.

I had a Draytek 2910vg 10 years ago doing exactly that, so very very doable.
But then, that was always a solution under the existing criteria and with
that, this change just allows companies to not offer that solution. Which does
raise one question - will customers be able to keep their existing number and
port it to a VOIP provider of their choice? That is one aspect that could of
been covered in these changes. That would certainly open up the markets and in
a good way.

~~~
abalashov
TA96 rules mandate number portability. But you can't port a number outside of
a rate centre. To put it simply, to port a number to a new carrier, the
carrier has to be able to pick the call up somewhere, by way of the
appropriate connections to the incumbent's "tandem" offices (think of it as a
kind of hub for the spokes that are Bell central offices).

The underlying PSTN origination supply chain for the VoIP industry consists of
a small oligopoly of CLECs at this point (e.g. Level3, Bandwidth.com, Verizon
Business, Onvoy and all the companies they bought, etc.) and they don't
necessarily have the interconnections and footprint in these same markets —
most especially not the "Tier 3" plus rural markets.

~~~
Zenst
So they end up locking you into a call forwarding service, which entails you
end up paying for them to do very little, with any maintenance liability
already covered by existing liabilities.

Starting to see why they wanted the change now.

~~~
abalashov
Pretty much, yeah.

For a CLEC, interconnecting in any given LATA[1] is a complex and costly
endeavour—I mean the actual interconnecting, not opting into an
interconnection agreement (ICA) for one purpose or another. CLECs are not
beholden to any universal service obligations or similar social policy
objectives, and will only connect in higher-density metro-type markets in
which there is profit in doing so. The business case has to be there, and that
generally comes in the form of downstream VoIP service providers having
customer demand in that area.

So, hyper-rural folks are deeply out of luck. We deal with this scenario all
the time in my line of work: "hey, anyone know someone who can port a number
in this $LOCAL_YOKEL territory out in $NEVER_HEARD_OF_IT?"

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_access_and_transport_are...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_access_and_transport_area)

------
Sami_Lehtinen
Many people opt for mobile data, this has been happening in many countries for
a long time. When 3G data came, people started to switching to mobile data
from physical connections. Many people seem to think that having physical
networking infrastructure is great waste of resources. This is also one of the
reasons why some countries got mobile data average traffic over 15 gigabytes /
month. That's because people watch Netflix and YouTube all day using mobile
data.

Number of people who actually need high speed networking is quite low. Yet
this naturally means, that the high speed option might not be available at
all, with reasonable cost. 4G and 5G means that there will be less and less
wired (copper or fiber) connections.

------
sitkack
Many of the owners of copper lines have gotten huge subsidies on their
switching centers. Those switching centers which often take up an entire city
block are now free for land development. Hundreds of billions in land value
just got "given" to the largest telcos.

------
cavisne
Does ATT have an alternate asset? As far as I know they dont run a cable
network or a significant fttp network so I dont see why they would remove any
_broadband_ customers. Dial up and landline only customers I can see being
moved to LTE.

I dont see anything about the USF going away so I dont see why anyone would be
left behind, USF's are normally highly profitable for the telco. For the edge
cases that cant receive a mobile signal with a roof mounted antenna, I guess a
subsidized satellite phone will be the solution.

~~~
maxerickson
They segment their reporting, page 18 of this document shows their consumer
segment:

[https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-
IR/financial-r...](https://investors.att.com/~/media/Files/A/ATT-IR/financial-
reports/annual-reports/2016/att-ar2016-completeannualreport.pdf)

They had as many people on Uverse video (which I guess is fiber) in 2014 as
they had on copper phone lines in 2016.

~~~
cavisne
Uverse seems to be mostly fiber to the node, ie it’s still copper into the
home

~~~
joezydeco
AT&T has been very picky about where and when they deploy the DSLAMs to make
UVerse happen.

In a lot of cases, they run into headwinds with local municipalities regarding
contracts they already have with Comcast, RCN, etc when it comes to providing
television service (AT&T has argued to varying degrees of success that UVerse
has nothing to do with TV). DSLAMs are also ugly boxes that have to sit in
very visible and inconvenient places.

For some reason in my neighborhood, UVerse exists up until about 3 blocks from
my home and it goes no further. Nobody can explain why.

------
knolan
Copper can still play a role.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.fast](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.fast)

~~~
Godel_unicode
From Wikipedia:

"...for local loops shorter than 500 m"

~~~
maltalex
It's doable in many cities.

A large part of the infrastructure you need to replace when upgrading is
inside buildings. With a 500m radius, you can avoid rewiring buildings and
have loops terminate in the street.

~~~
selectodude
Depends on how old the copper is, though. If it needs to be replaced, you
might as well run metro ethernet or FTTH.

------
thrillgore
Despite copper's technical limitations, this smacks of the inmates once again
running the asylum.

Once again, I am putting my decision to vacate the US back on the table.

~~~
cstrat
Come to Australia, we abandoned a national fibre network and are now sticking
with copper and HFC where possible... _facepalm_

------
inetknght
Okay, so telco companies are Title II. ISPs are not.

This rollback effectively means telcos can "upgrade" to no longer be telcos.

------
gumby
Let's not forget alarm service, which is why I keep my copper loop.

~~~
jgowdy
Newer alarms often have cellular modems and enough battery to make the call
even if you cut the power.

~~~
twothamendment
True, but it sounds like rural homes are the ones at risk of losing copper.
They are the same homes that done have reliable cell service. I don't have
reliable cell service at home. It is ok some days, but I bet there is only one
tower and some days it just disappears.

