[BC] Blue Box...

[Mike McCarthy]

Agreed,

AT&T's reps have advised me they plan to sunset TDM point to point DS-1's
at some point within the next 10 years. No surprise.

I have not yet had a problem getting real copper POTS to work so long as
we order the line (or confirm the existing line is indeed copper and
simple non-centrex POTS) and work with the venue to extend to the point of
broadcast.  That's not to suggest AT&T will make that more challenging in
the coming years. I do expect POTS will become somewhat less yielding in
the coming years as AT&T starts to migrate to packet switched in their
outlying SLiC's.

Let me add, they are starting to shy away from renewing contracts and in
some cases are no longer offering 5 year contract terms. Long distance
(both intra-state and inter-state inter-LATA) hasn't offered them in some
time limiting only to three. And I was warned the next contract may be the
last for LD P2P TDM DS-1's lest we pay significantly more to sustain
legacy systems.

I'm less concerned about them offering point to point packet service so
long as the bandwidth is static, committed, and stable with the same
response time to correct/repair outages. If anything, we should embrace
packet fiber to the premises as a physically more robust and immune medium
which doesn't suffer the same problems as shorted pairs or blown repeaters
from lightning.

As much as I have bashed GatesAIR...prior Harris...I happen to like their
IP CM-30 card kit to take current Intraplex cages and convert them to IP
and multi-cast.  For plants with a signifcant investment in Intraplex, it
sure beats tearing everything out and starting over.

MM

On Thu, July 31, 2014 8:32 am, Steve Ordinetz wrote:
>

> Tom Osenkowsky, CPBE wrote:
>
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