https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/centurylink-nightmares-users-keep-asking-ars-for-help-with-multi-month-outages/
"He said that in the mountains of western Boulder County, there are a total of five techs who know how to work with copper wire," John told us. "All the other employees only work with fiber. CenturyLink is losing the people familiar with copper and not replacing them, even though copper is what the west half of the county depends on."
"They have choices of cellular or satellite phone services via VoIP."
Im curious why a cell or satellite phone would use voip? The cell will use its cell network for calls and the sat phone connects direct to the satellite. Neither require a wifi connection.
"Lumen just wants all residential customers on cable to just cancel their service and go to another company. It’s only interested in fiber optics and would love to just get rid of everything that has to do with cable. But we will see if they can find a buyer for the cable network after they already took what they wanted out of the business."
Assuming you mean copper facilities not cable (as in cable tv). Lumen wants out of the mass markets business completely. No residential or small business on fiber or copper. Thats mass markets which is whats up for sale. They want the cloud and enterprise...for now. They are actively forcing copper customers over to fiber if its available in the area and telling copper customers they are free to goto alternate dialtone providers if they are available in the area. Thats been happening for a few years so no groundbreaking news there. They wont sell the fiber network and say sure, we'll keep the copper. It's all one big package along with the central office which is where the real money is. After that Lumen will be a clec leasing "local" access on that fiber. Plenty of empty cages from all the failed clecs over the years. MPOP it and a national tech comes in and does his work and the local field tech demarcs it for the end user. As for the copper...whoever purchases mass markets can continue providing it or turn off the lights. Mine it out. Sell the batteries. Or, lease that out to wholesale and other clecs that want the copper dialtone. Believe it or not, some people and business still want that phone company dialtone when the power goes out even though theres multiple other ways to have a phone line. Finally, anyone who buys mass markets is solely wanting the fiber footprint. The copper is just a necessary evil that will go with it. When it happens and the copper plant has zero customers left i hope i get a call. It'll be time to buy a T40 at auction and go into business for myself wrecking it out.
Lumen just wants all residential customers on cable to just cancel their service and go to another company. It’s only interested in fiber optics and would love to just get rid of everything that has to do with cable. But we will see if they can find a buyer for the cable network after they already took what they wanted out of the business.
Sadly terrible for consumer, Lumen will not invest nor does it care for impact on copper customer base. That is like a cellphone company worrying about non smart phones support, that is the past and no path for future nor skill set as that is old skill. Those communities will be forced to move on to starlink and upgrade infrastructure
Copper isn’t relied upon, nearly as much as it’s Hung upon! If you want to see who disconnected their pots service this week, just check the obituaries! I know that’s a crass thing to say but it’s also the reality of the situation!
And just how long must us Old timers work??
Fixing copper just keeps getting harder, it’s bad enough that the copper is decaying away due to the natural process, but the tools to test are not being replaced or repaired because those last century test sets are no longer supported by the vendors who manufacture them back in the 1900’s.. not to mention that my knees, back and Hips are all from the 1900’s.. lol.. back when we old timers started the expectation was that during your mid to late 50’s you go to construction, the CO, Be a tester..but those jobs are gone, as are the days that this was enjoyable work.
These days the younger crowd will leave Xbox’s standing open, will leave drops hanging low, Ect Ect.. if you say anything you’ll be accused of creating a hostile environment,, even the 20 something supervisors throw out an OK BOOMER from time to time..
Best of luck to everyone.. it’s a brave new wold!!
"They pay $113 a month for phone and DSL service, he said."
The business model is broken. Both the Copper and Fiber networks cost more to deploy and maintain than Lumen is allowed to bill for. When these networks were deployed it was a different world.
Telecom would have to 10x everyone's bills to provide the support they demand.
That's the master plan.
By not having the technicians who knows how to work on copper.
That forces the remaining copper customers to move on.
They have choices of cellular or satellite phone services via VoIP.
Not suprised at all. The new regime thinks everything can be done via the cloud and esoteric means that haven't even been tested or invented yet.