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FCC votes to begin testing an overhaul of US phone system

2014-01-31 09:15 by
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The FCC is set to take a step toward shutting down the existing landline telephone system in favor of a new, digital-based network. The FCC's unanimous vote Thursday will allow carriers to experiment with providing voice service using IP, delivered over coaxial cable, fiber or wireless networks, with the eventual goal of retiring copper-based facilities. The FCC's action comes in response to an AT&T request from late 2012 to begin testing a transition to IP networks.

"Our communications are rapidly transitioning to IP-networks - and that's a good thing," the FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement on Thursday. "The move from the circuit-switched networks of Alexander Graham Bell to the new networks of the Internet Revolution is all around us - with expanded deployment of fiber, with new forms of wireless, with bonded copper and coaxial cable. These transitions - plural - are a good thing because IP networks are more efficient, which can enable better products, lower prices, and massive benefits for consumers."

U.S. consumers are gradually abandoning the old, copper-based phone network for other services already. More than a third of adults use cellphones as their only form of phone service, up from just 5 percent a decade ago. Because federal regulations require phone companies to maintain the plain, old telephone system even as they continue building out advanced networks, many in the industry argue that the arrangement imposes costs and holds back investment in the future.

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