TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: AT&T 'Family' Reunion: Merger Approved

Re: AT&T 'Family' Reunion: Merger Approved

Paul (PSSawyer.does.not.want.spam@comcast.BAD.EXAMPLE.net)
Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:00:37 UTC

hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote in news:telecom26.2.6@telecom-digest.org:

> I like the commentators (like Newsweek) that suggested customers
> keep a landline as an emergency spare if they get VOIP. That's bad
> for two reasons: 1) it gives the Bell companies the scraps of little
> business while the juicy profits go to the new guys. 2) It means
> the new guys don't have to upgrade their systems to maximum
> reliability -- as the old Bell companies offer* -- because they have
> old Bell being their safety shield. That's not fair to Bell -- to
> maintain capacity for someone ELSE's troubles.

> *When there was a nasty power failure or other disaster, only the
> traditional landlines kept working. The CO's had heavy construction
> and diesel generators and batteries. The wireless and cable companies
> had very little capacity for emergency traffic AND we learned they had
> very little battery backup in their intermediate relay stations and
> towers. (My cable has no such backup in power failures; my VOIP will
> be dead in a power failure).

As I mentioned when this came up before, the "Old Bell" companies no
longer seem to care about this traditional quality of backup service:

http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/TELECOM_Digest_Online2006-
2/0869.html

Paul

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