“The telephone network is obsolete”: Get ready for the all-IP telco (AY&T wants to screw YOU) [View all]

[DainBramaged]

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When everything is IP, the telecom industries and IT industries will basically become one and the same, Berninger said. It'll be important to make the transition while preserving what's good about traditional phone networks, such as reliability and 911 services, he noted. In doing so, companies like AT&T will shed lots of complexity and potentially save a ton of money. AT&T's network services and content delivery would all be delivered using the same technology.

Obviously, an all-IP network lacks any traditional circuit switching. "If you take a central office, pull out all the TDM (time-division multiplexing) equipment, and put in all IP equipment, guess what happens? The central office disappears," Berninger said. "The first thing the telcos get is a whole lot of free real estate. … It's going to be a really great thing for AT&T. BT made a lot of money when they switched over to IP."

The switch to all-IP telcos will be far more complex than the switch to all-digital television, Hultquist said. "TV was one service. Phone companies like AT&T have thousands of services based on this legacy technology," he said. Why thousands? Hultquist notes that when you order traditional phone service, you choose from "a dizzying array of diff combinations of features: With voicemail, with caller ID, without caller ID, with various kinds of dialing capabilities."

Each different combination represents a service, or USOC (Universal Service Ordering Code), in the phone companies' parlance. Merging all of these into fewer IP services will help make service providers more efficient.
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http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/the-telephone-network-is-obsolete-get-ready-for-the-all-ip-telco/


When the power goes out so does your phone service. THOUSANDS of skilled jobs will go poof, and even though the long-term cost of doing business will drop dramatically for thr Telcos, your phone bill wont.


Try connecting an IP line to a fire or burglar line!!!!! I KNOW it's not reliable.