We have that exact same stuff in my area too: I've actually talked to
the AT&T tech who was setting that cabinet up on one of our streets.
The explanation he gave me was that even though they want everyone to go
to this new-fangled fiber thing, they still have to maintain a small
number of copper pairs running all the way to the real CO like it used
to be. The reason is that if some kooky customer like me wants a
service like ISDN that's only available from the real Class 5 switch and
not from the "U-Verse" remote terminal, they are still required to
provide that as a regulated telco.
Ditto with CLECs like Covad-now-MegaPath: even though they don't get
access to the FTTN infrastructure, no telco is evicting their legacy CO
presence. Therefore, if a kooky customer like me wishes to forego fiber
speeds and prefers the slower all-copper solution, I can still get SDSL
from the CLEC, and the ILEC (AT&T) will be required to provide a direct
copper pair from that CLEC's cage inside the CO to the customer premise,
no matter how much they wish for these copper pairs to die.
Long live copper!
MS
Ditto with CLECs like Covad-now-MegaPath: even though they don't get
access to the FTTN infrastructure, no telco is evicting their legacy CO
presence. Therefore, if a kooky customer like me wishes to forego fiber
speeds and prefers the slower all-copper solution, I can still get SDSL
from the CLEC, and the ILEC (AT&T) will be required to provide a direct
copper pair from that CLEC's cage inside the CO to the customer premise,
no matter how much they wish for these copper pairs to die.
As I understand it, that's not quite true. The ILEC is only required
to provide a copper pair to a CLEC as an unbundled element IF ONE IS
AVAILABLE. The ILEC has no deadline for installing new copper for the
CLEC, only the requirement that the CLEC gets the next one available.
If you think about it, it's obvious why: unbundling was intended to
require ILECs to share in the businesses in which they already engage,
not enter or remain in businesses they don't want to be in.
And of course when Verizon installs Fios, they remove the old copper
pairs so that they're no longer available for use. After all, Verizon
wants to retire the copper infrastructure as quickly as possible so
they can quit maintaining it.
There are some games one can play. You can order an then cancel a
service from the ILEC that would require them to install new copper,
and that'll sometimes induce the copper installation that the CLEC
needs to have their outstanding order. But that doesn't always work.
It gets... labyrinthine.
if a kooky customer like me wishes to forego fiber
speeds and prefers the slower all-copper solution,
Of course, if the companies were required to unbundle *all* of the
physical path elements (including fiber) we might not need a network
neutrality debate. Sadly, the cable companies' technology does not
easily unbundle and it would probably be unfair to require the telcos
to unbundle when the same burden isn't placed on the cable companies.
So, the debate moves to a different chokepoint where both technologies
can be treated the same: packet treatment.
Regards,
Bill Herrin