AT&T wants to get out of the landline phone services, telling the Federal Communications Commission that if it were to take seriously the challenge of strengthening broadband and IP-based communications, it has no other choice but to ditch landline telephony.
AT&T insists that due to technological advances, customer preferences, and market forces, it’s only a question of when, not if, giving the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and plain old telephone service (POTS) the boot will actually happen.
Calling PSTN and POTS “relics of a bygone era,” AT&T is now asking the FCC to solicit the public for comments as to when the phaseout of these two services is going to be.
The move is AT&T’s response to a Notice of Inquiry from FCC as to how best to move forward with plans of universal broadband access. Efforts to pull this off “will not be met in a timely or efficient manner if providers are forced to continue to invest in and to maintain two networks” especially that regular landline services have become unprofitable, AT&T tells FCC in its letter.
“With each passing day, more and more communications services migrate to broadband and IP-based services” leaving PSTN and POTS obsolete, AT&T says in the letter.
According to AT&T, 22 percent of households have already given up landline service and are now using mobile phones instead. Some 700,000 landlines are given the boot each month, while 18 million households now use Skype or Vonage. By the end of this year, it is projected that some 24 million consumers will be using VoIP service, and the number could go as high as 45 million by next year.
Even those who have a landline service are using it less and instead opt for mobile phones, instant messaging and social networking sites to communicate, says AT&T. Who actually needs a landline when you get unlimited talk time, caller ID, call forwarding, unlimited text messaging, and a host of other cool features on your mobile phone?
Revenues from POTS have since dropped to $130.8 billion in 2007 from $176.6 billion in 2000, while costs continue to rise. Calling the trend “irreversible,” AT&T warns that what this does is merely to gobble up resources that could otherwise be poured into improving IP network system.
“A huge proportion of the capital resources available to some of the largest telecommunications providers in the country (is spent not on) improving broadband speeds or bringing broadband to more customers” but on services that are no longer useful to American consumers, says AT&T.
While it is estimated that about 90 percent of U.S. residents already have access to broadband, AT&T says providing the remaining 10 percent with broadband access is crucial to the nation’s economic development.
“Broadband is dramatically changing the way Americans live, work, obtain health care and interact with the government. Congress and the Commission have rightly made universal broadband access a core national priority,” says AT&T.
Bringing broadband to the remaining 10 percent of Americans who don’t have access to it is going to cost about $350 billion, however, AT&T estimates. This means that landline services definitely have to go.
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