FOX News: FCC announces plans to upgrade century-old phone system

[Richard O'Neill]

  Future resource? Maybe. My neighborhood is wired for FIOS and a lot of 
folks have signed up for the bundled services, including me. It was the 
best deal I could get for high speed in my area. Before that it was 
snail slow dial-up, local area phoning and antenna TV. I've found free 
nationwide calling rather handy. Combined, the services are barely more 
expensive than what I was paying previously. However, the FIOS TV that I 
do watch has only a few channels that aren't currently received from 
digital antenna OTA TV in the DC area. Mostly I bought FIOS for high 
speed and phone.

  Before switching to fiber my 40+ year old copper lines were frequently 
noisy. New wire pairs had to be periodically switched every couple of 
years as old ones corroded. I've seen the cables, they consist of many 
strands of plastic insulated small gauge hookup size wire. There's not 
enough copper there to recoup the cost and trouble of digging it up for 
scrap.

  Perhaps in a few hundred years archeologists will excavate Ma Bell's 
underground cables (their distant technological past) while they marvel 
at the antiquity. They might even write papers on the subject, if paper 
still exists. Surrounded by decades of collected books, that thought 
almost makes me feel like a dinosaur.

Richard

On 11/22/2013 6:40 PM, Phil wrote:
> You surprise me. In the UK the copper value paid for our entire conversion 20 years ago - and copper commands a much higher price in real terms now. Oh well, it'll be a future resource for you.
>
> Phil M1GWZ
>
>
> On 22 Nov 2013, at 22:39, Chip Fetrow wrote:
>
>> The copper cable would be very expensive to remove, so most places it is being abandoned in place.
>>
>> On Nov 21, 2013, at 7:54 PM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:
>>
>>> Message: 5
>>> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 00:46:06 +0000
>>> From: Phil <philmt59 at aol.com>
>>> To: Tacos reflector <tacos at amrad.org>
>>> Subject: Re: FOX News: FCC announces plans to upgrade century-old
>>> 	phone system
>>>
>>> Of course, the real driving force behind the hardware update from copper wire to optical fibre is that the value of the copper will most likely pay for the whole conversion, and yield a profit.
>>>
>>> Phil M1GWZ
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