[Discuss] AT&T eliminating copper phone lines

[Daniel Barrett]

On March 28, 2017, Dan Ritter wrote:
>1, 2 and 3 are all variations on 4 [eliminating the landline]

Oh god. Does this mean that fiber optic lines, when they replace
copper lines in the home, reduce the voice quality to that of a cell
phone? (If so, I'm screwed for life. I cannot make out 50% of cell
phone conversations, even with hearing aids.)

>What does your alarm company recommend?

They say they'll work fine over fiber optic lines of the sort that
AT&T or Verizon installs. I'm checking on Vonage. (But Vonage has
other difficulties, like the fact that the phone lines are in the
basement and the FIOS router is on the third floor, so I'd have to
hire an electrician to run cables to the Vonage box, and then bring in
the alarm company to hook up their stuff.)

>What does AT&T say when you say "I have an alarm system that depends
>on a POTS line"?

"The lines brought to your home MUST be MUST be [sic] converted to
fiber. [Otherwise], your AT&T service will be disconnected when the
outside facilities in your area are fully migrated from copper to
fiber on May 5, 2017."

--
Dan Barrett
dbarrett at blazemonger.com