PSTN-to-IP transition

Copper networks still form the backbone of America’s communication system despite the rise of fiber -- and providers are either pulling the plug or letting them fall into disrepair.

The Federal Communications Commission released a report on the 911 outage originating in CenturyLink’s network that occurred Dec 27, 2018. The findings are the latest example of the risks involved in what the FCC calls the telecom “tech transition.” The 911 outage studied in the report was what is known as a “sunny day” outage – one not caused by weather or other natural disaster.

Frontier Communications customers are reporting more outages and longer repair times, and state government officials have decided to investigate.

Jeffrey Houser launched the rural internet-service provider Rednet by shooting Wi-Fi from ridge-top antennas to customers from Punxsutawney (PA) of groundhog fame to homespun Blairsville (PA). His vision was to bring the internet to rural areas. And all was going well until Rednet connected off-campus apartments for students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, expanding beyond his rural base, but also encroaching on Comcast's turf.  And that’s when, Houser says, his company ran into the buzz saw of Comcast’s billing and collections department.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has circulated a proposal to grant USTelecom what is described as two narrow portions of its request for forbearance from applying some copper-era Telecommunications Act voice service support regulations to an increasingly fiber world. But it does not retire broadband-related obligations after USTelecom withdrew that ask July 1.

Jan 15, reports surfaced that Voipo, a California voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP) provider, exposed millions of consumer call logs and text messages stored on an “improperly secured” ElasticSearch database for several months before security researcher Justin Paine located them. Public Knowledge demands that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai enforce existing Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) rules that protect the privacy of information related to telephone calls.

Public Knowledge, joined by Greenlining Institute, The Utility Reform Network (TURN), and the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA), filed a petitioners’ brief in the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit requesting the Court vacate the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 Technology Transitions Order, which rolled back consumer protections established in the agency’s 2015 Order.

The Federal Communications Commission has released an additional $36 million annually for 175 small rural carriers that opted to transition to receive broadband Universal Service support based on the alternative Connect America cost model (A-CAM). In exchange, the A-CAM carriers have committed to more aggressive broadband deployment goals – although those goals are not as aggressive as those originally established for the A-CAM portion of the high-cost Universal Service program back in 2016.

[Speech] The Federal Communications Commission has launched an across-the-board review to identify regulations that need to be revised or repealed altogether. Beyond cutting rules that slow network buildout, we’re promoting investment in next-generation networks with a smarter regulatory approach. I often say that dumb pipes won’t deliver smart cities. That’s why we reversed the previous Administration’s decision to impose 20th century utility-style regulations on our 21st century networks.