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FCC required that the customers could not have down time like the exsitng system, due to 911 and emgy calls.

Interesting!

Here in N. NJ, (according to a few Verizon workers) the fiber in the residential areas is to be removed and replaced by...copper [Linked Image]

Seems that the fiber is costing too much to maintain, and when the electricity goes out, so does the fiber and thus the telephone service. I would venture a guess that lack of access to DSL is also a big reason (no DSL if your phones are on the fiber diet, at least around here). When this is supposed to happen, I don't know. The fiber was installed about 10 years ago!

If you look closely at a drop wire here, there is a coaxial cable along with the usual telephone cable. That was supposed to be part of the telco-served video-on-demand, etc. Every single house around here had a new demarc box installed on the outside, so that telco access was not an issue. Now the Verizon guys are saying that any new demarcs are going to be indoors as they always were, regular copper drop wire, no coax.

I can't complain too much--NJ has the lowest local phone rates in the USA. (At least that was the case 2 years ago...)

[This message has been edited by ThinkGood (edited 01-31-2003).]