PSTN abandonement is happening. Are we ready and what can be done? Find out in this WAUG presentation.

1. The End of an Era
The Abandonment of the PSTN
Mark J. Fletcher, ENP
Chief Architect
Worldwide Public Safety Solutions
March 2014

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Brief History of the Bell System
1875
Alexander Bell forms American Bell
1876
Bell Telephone Patent #174,465
1878
1st Telephone Exchange – New Haven, CT
1st Switchboard / Operator – New Haven, CT
1st Telephone in the Whitehouse
1882
American Bell buys Western Electric
1884
AT&T is formed as a subsidiary
Long Distance Connection (NY  CHI)
1899
AT&T Buys out American Bell assets

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Brief History of the Bell System
1899
Bell competitor Brown Telephone forms
1949
U.S> Anti-Trust Lawsuit against AT&T
1956
AT&T not allowed to enter computer and
information services
AT&T allowed to keep Western Electric
AT&T Long Distance formed
Bell Labs became „research‟
1st Trans-Atlantic Telephone cable run (TAT-1)
1968
Microwave Communications of America, Inc.
(MCI) was formed

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Brief History of the Bell System
1968
Microwave Communications of America, Inc. (MCI) formed
1971
MCI receives Government approval to compete with AT&T
for long distance services
1974
Department of Justice files Anti-Trust Lawsuit

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Brief History of the Bell System
1982
The FCC allows AT&T to get into the computer and information
systems business, provided:
AT&T leaves the local-exchange market
Divests itself of all Bell Telephone assets except phone system
manufacturing facilities
Converts the 22 separate Bell Operating Carriers into 7
Regional Bell Operating Carriers (RBOC)
Ameritech
Bell Atlantic
BellSouth Corporation
NYNEX
Pacific Telesis Group
Southwestern Bell Corporation
US West
The RBOCs are barred from competing in long distance

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2012 FCC Technical Advisory Council Report States:
[T]he FCC should set a date after which the circuit-switched
voice elements of the PSTN would no longer constitute the
network of record in the United States.

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Verizon is filing Tarrifs to quietly step away

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Decreasing Equipment Lifecycles
Based on simple math alone, if you
bought a “box” to provide a service to
your customers, and the life expectancy
of that box was 20 years, you could
easily calculate your cost per month per
customer. If, because of new
technology, the life expectancy were
reduced to five years, your monthly-
amortized cost would increase by four
times to compensate for that event.
0
10
20
30
40
5 Years
10 Years
20 Years
Monthly Cost Over Lifespan
5 Years
10 Years
20 Years

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Diminishing Customer Base
Based on simple math alone, if you
bought a “box” to provide a service to
your customers, and your customer
base diminishes by 50%, based on the
above “20 year model”, your annual
amortized expense would double per
customer.
0
10
20
30
40
Cost Per Customer
50% Reduction
Full Customer Base

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Decreased Support Cost For New Equipment
The legacy network required a trained workforce, roving
around in specialized vehicles, full of expensive test
equipment.
New modern networks can reside in “dark centers” where
access to programming and diagnostics is all
accomplished remotely through a data connection.
While this does nothing to reduce the expense of a
trained workforce, but it does remove the requirement to
have that workforce out in the streets in vehicles.

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The Perfect Storm: SANDY
Late in the fall of 2012, Hurricane Sandy barreled its way
up the East Coast causing significant damage to our
telecommunications infrastructure from Washington DC to
New England.
It was a classic example of the 100 year storm, and in
addition to causing several outages, much of the
infrastructure became destroyed.
This poses a unique problem to telecommunications
carriers like AT&T, Verizon and Century Link. Do they
rebuild their aging infrastructure that was just recently
amortized off the books, or was just about to be?
If they do, they have to start the “20 year clock” all over
again, but they are faced with statements that the PSTN
will start to go away in five short years.

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Services that are dependent on POTS
 Credit Card Machines
 Modems
 TTY/TDD
 ATM Machines
 Alarm Lines
 Point to Point Special Circuits

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A new analysis of data released by the
U.S. Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) shows that nearly half
of all calls received by 9-1-1 emergency
centers in North Carolina from wireless
phones in June 2013 did not include the
accurate location information necessary to
find a caller in crisis.
The problem has worsened over the past
year, as the percent of calls lacking such
information has risen from 36% in June
2012 to 47% in June of this year.
What about 911 service?

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How will it affect YOUR business?
PSTN Abandonment:
Clearly, it‟s happening
Even more clearer, is the fact that we
ARE NOT READY!