Over the past few years, what started as a dull rumble about the abandonment of landlines by telecommunications companies (read: Verizon, CenturyLink and AT&T, among others) has grown into a medium roar. Most recently, the Michigan and Colorado legislatures have been confronted with requests, driven by the telecommunications giants (insert "duh" here) to allow the existing, old, occasionally crumbling landline infrastructure to die a natural death in favor of other technologies, primarily those driven by the Internet (VoIP, among others including WebRTC) as well as the plethora of wireless devices.
What's happened in Michigan and Colorado is not unique. Legislators and public service commissions in many states are confronted with the same challenges, as many people and businesses migrate away from traditional landline service, while the wireline plant, which is costly to maintain, deteriorates. It's certainly easy to understand why those traditional phone service providers are less excited than ever to maintain that cable and switching plant as returns on such investments continue to dwindle.
Frequently, those who are left to rely on landlines primarily are in remote or economically disadvantaged communities where wireless service may not be a reliable alternative, or where Internet service (and the computers that support it) are a luxury. Recognizing these challenges, the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) has joined other federal agencies in investing millions of taxpayer dollars (some of which came directly from the federal stimulus funds or ARRA) to deploy reliable alternative communications technologies where they may be needed most. This includes significant funding for designated Native American lands where Internet and computer deployment have historically been very low.
In the event that traditionally landline service is allowed to limp quietly into the sunset on a state-by-state basis, powerful organizations like AARP that represent traditional landline users have been vocal to the point of screaming that the demise of the landline places some of the most vulnerable members of our society at risk. The risk is twofold because of the inherent weaknesses in both Internet-based and wireless telephony:
1. In a power failure, absent a generator, service will not work. A simple corded landline phone still has usable dial tone in the event of a power failure, whereas cordless phones and wireless devices may not.
2. Wireless services (read: cell phones) are not only subject to battery limitations, but to incomplete information when used to call first responders (fire, police, emergency medical).
Further, as anyone who has lived through a long-term power outage knows, recharging batteries when there is no power is not impossible, but certainly can be a real challenge. For someone who lives (whether by choice or not) in a rural area where wireless coverage is thin, if existent, there are few solutions to this problem.
But there may be one possibility. Recently, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, in an appearance before a group of public utility officials in Santa Fe, suggested that there is significant interest from the electric utility industry to provide broadband service to existing customers. Since utilities have actual hard-wired connections into most, if not all, homes in remote and low-income areas, this actual physical connection may provide exactly the kind of link that could allow the traditional phone service providers to gracefully abandon tired infrastructure that they claim is dragging them down, while enabling customers to retain some kind of acceptable level of connectivity. Internet phone service is not the same as traditional landline service, although its functionality is similar in so many respects that to the caller, it may seem identical.
Slowly but surely, utilities are beginning to take advantage of available funding to begin deploying high-capacity fiber optic cable to residential customers. Couple this technology with the concept of "smart grid," where communications and computer technologies can be harnessed to manage electric and energy systems and usage, from the largest providers to individual residential customers, and now utilities have additional incentives for offering these services to consumers.
The smart grid not only enables customers to manage their respective energy consumption efficiently, but it provides the same operational efficiencies to those who plan for, manage, and deliver energy in the most efficient way possible--that is, the utilities themselves.
The City of Chattanooga, TN secured federal funding to provide fiber-to-the-home broadband service. When matched with $290 million in municipal bonds, the city's Electric Power Board (EPB) received a Department of Energy Recovery Act grant to improve its electricity infrastructure by building a smart grid, including fiber to the home.
While planning the deployment of its electrical smart grid, EPB realized that with additional investment, it could use the smart grid fiber to provide broadband service as well. As described in the February, 2014 GAO Report to Congress entitled "Telecommunications: Federal Broadband Deployment Programs and Small Business:"
"As a result [of the municipality's investment], all homes and businesses in the 600 square miles served by EPB now have fiber connections to monitor electricity, and each business and home can now receive broadband service up to 1 Gbps across this same fiber network. According to some small businesses, this has resulted in a number of small startups and small business incubators in Chattanooga, drawn by the high-speed network, the low cost to operate a small business, and a culture that supports entrepreneurs."
In a different environment, Kit Carson Electric Cooperative is building a new broadband network alongside of its existing electrical infrastructure that currently offers 29,000 connections. The new network will be designed to cover roughly 3,000 square miles in 3 rural, underserved counties in northern New Mexico. The fiber project is being funded with another federal grant of $64 million from the U.S. Rural Utilities Service. In the New Mexico project, FTTH will be used not only for Internet access, but VoIP, video and smart grid projects including "advanced metering infrastructure and real-time detection of power outages," according to an article that appeared in CED Magazine on March 13, 2014.
Personally, I'm a huge fan of landlines. I work with them at home and in my office. I rely on them. But I understand that the underlying plant that supports them is aging and costly. While the goal of "universal service" is truly "universal service" for all Americans, FTTH technologies offer capabilities that are far beyond what was envisioned when the nation was wired. However, no technology--or anything else for that matter--provides the solution to all problems. This one, however, has huge possibilities.
