Verizon: Land Line vs Wireless

The wired telephone network where every house and business in the United States was connected with a physical wire maintained by the telephone company has been the model of reliability and dependability in emergency situations for over a century.  During power outages, this wired network was still operational, because the telephone company supplied their own power and offered a dedicated line to its customers separate from the power company.  Many hospitals and municipalities still use wire lines because of this reliability. However, over the past 20 years the ability to maintain a wired telephone network has degraded due to a lack of obsolete hardware that is no longer manufactured. As customers and businesses have shifted to cellular and wireless technology, the wired network is no longer in demand or even maintainable as many of the equipment companies like Nortel, Lucent and Siemens stopped making wired telephone hardware in the 1980’s.  As a result, during Hurricane Sandy  almost all copper communication infrastructure along the New Jersey coast was destroyed or badly damaged, leaving many residences with no wired telephone services. Not being able to repair the legacy wired network, Verizon Communications, one of the last remaining pieces of the universal service Bell System, has decided to instead install new wireless bay stations called “Voice Link” on top of telephone poles and provide services from the telephone poles to each home wireless. Verizon faced an outcry from residents, advocacy groups, and government officials claiming that there isn’t anything wrong with Voice Link as long as it is an option to customers. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman accused Verizon of trying to "depart from a century of telephone service regulation" by going wireless-only.  According to the FCC, a number of factors can prevent the commencement or completion of a call from a wireless device. Many of these limitations are from surrounding areas, call capacity and network architecture (where antennas are located). Verizon being forced into making this decision demonstrates the importance of regulatory oversight. As of now, many wireless carriers are even not rebuilding in disaster areas. According Harold Feld, senior VP of advocacy group Public Knowledge “The FCC still needs to provide guidance to carriers on their responsibilities when a natural disaster destroys their existing copper network".

In addition, Verizon’s voice link would be detrimental to the hospital, state municipalities and especially the elderly, many of which use medical monitoring devices that critically need to be operational in the event of a national disaster. Verizon has received hundreds of compliance by customers and others seeking press attention, forced Verizon to acknowledge that Voice Link simply does not substitute for a land line.  Recently Verizon issued a statement claiming that they will begin building a fiber optic network that will enable state-of-the-art wire line voice and broadband services, Verizon expect to be finished around the summer of 2014. All of the traditional telephone services will be delivered over a fiber network.

Even though wireless technology is innovation in infrastructure communication it does not replace or mean that a wired line is necessarily “obsolete”, reliability and dependable communication will always be over a wire.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/09/verizon-facing-protest-wont-kill-wireline-phone-in-hurricane-damaged-area/