----- Original Message ----- > From: "Joe Greco" <jgr...@ns.sol.net>
> Yeah, um, well, hate to ruin that glorious illusion of the legacy > physical plant, but Ma Bell mostly doesn't run copper all the way > back to a real CO with a real battery room these days when they're > deploying new copper. So if you have a house built more than maybe > 20 years ago, yeah, you're more likely to have a pair back to the CO, > but if you've ordered a second line, or you're in a new subdivision > and you're far from the CO, the chances you're actually on copper back > to the CO drops fairly quickly. Ok, sure. But probably to an RSU, which -- as I noted to Owen just now -- is engineered and monitored to quite a bit higher standards than I'm betting Comcast or FiOS is. > > If you have DC continuity and good balance to ground on a copper pair, > > you are *done*; no intermediate gear, no batteries, no config files, > > nothing. > > > > All I need at the residence is a 500 set, and the complexity of > > *those* is super low, too. > > Yes, it's elegant in a traditional way. I certainly agree. It has > some benefits. It also has some downsides in terms of usability, > things we wouldn't have noticed in 1970 but today we do. In an age > when cell phones can handle multiple calls and deliver Caller-ID > for a waiting call, it's nice to see feature parity on your landline. Oh, I'm not arguing that. The question, for me, has always been "are we taking full account of the *features* we get from traditionally engineered copper POTS" in doing our cost benefit analysis to newer technologies... and my answer was always "don' look like it to me." > > The real, underlying problem is that people take insufficient notice > > of all the complexity pinch points that they're engineering into > > loops in exchange for the extra controllability they get because > > everything's > > digital end to end. > > Looked at a different way, the "cold-war" reliability of the POTS network > maybe isn't quite as important as it once was. If you have a cell phone > and a VoIP line, maybe you're actually better off. If a plane crashes into > your local CO, perhaps you lose POTS and even your cell because the tower > was at the local CO. But if you've got a cell and a VoIP line that runs > over cable, maybe you actually have more diversity. That's possible; there are *lots* of end-site use cases. But that's end-user engineering; you could *always* improve your diversity if you were willing to put the time, though (and money) into it. > > And it doesn't *matter* whether it's riding on a cable internet link > > the complexity of which is already amortized: you're now *adopting* > > that > > complexity onto the voice service... the semantics of which (used to > > be) very well understood and not at all complex at all. > > Yes, but you *gain* capabilities as well as losing some of the > benefits of the old system. We're gaining the ability to do things like > texting > and transmitting pictures to 911 via the cellular network, for > example. Things change. Maybe some people do not need a cold-war relic of a > phone anymore. "some people" is, for me, the important phrase in that sentence. Cell phones have killed off pay phones and utility-grade watches; I'm not sure we're the better for it in either case. And SMS to 911 is still a *teeny* little capability; I think there's *one* whole PSAP in the US equipped for it so far. > > >From the user perception standpoint, I think, it's a tipping point > > thing... just like Madison WI. > > > > Cheers, > > -- jr 'that was *not* an invitation' a > > What, you want me to invite you for pizza in Madison? I hear there's > some good places near the Capitol... "...to political arguments on NANOG". Sorry not to show my work. :-) Cheers, -- jra