AT&T/FCC - and the move to put all OUR eggs in one basket.

[40hz]

At last! The perfect plan to make all telecommunications more easy to spy on - AND - remove any system redundancy or fallback in the event of a cyberattack or other disaster.

This from the If It Ain't Broke - Break It!" Department:

AT&T plan to shut off Public Switched Telephone Network moves ahead at FCC
FCC to greenlight IP phone trials, but won't completely deregulate AT&T.


On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to take its first major step toward letting AT&T and other carriers replace the country's traditional phone system with one that works entirely over Internet Protocol networks...

Here's a question:

In return for being allowed to move the entire US phone system (which "just works" under extremely adverse conditions and whose infrastructure is already paid for) over to a more high tech system (that is intrinsically more fragile and open to abuse and vandalism)...may we expect significant price reductions for AT&T customers considering Ma Bell will soon be saving large amounts of money by going over to a virtual system?

And especially since the savings realized on servicing FISA court orders alone should be huge once the transition is made?



Note: the plan is to end public wired service. You can be sure Uncle Sam and his ilk will be in no rush to completely abandon their wired systems.

[Stoic Joker]

Hm... So will that also kill off DSL? Or are they keeping parts of it (the PSTN) in place?

Years ago you had to have a home phone line to get DSL. Then they came up with a "Naked DSL" option which ran on the same lines without a phone service. I was on it for about 3 years at the end before I switched to fiber.