An interesting and educational read if you missed the original post on TMCNet. I have included part of it here with a link back to the complete post. This was written by Hunter Newby, CEO of Allied Fiber and was originally published on January 10, 2010:
AT&T declared the PSTN and POTS a relic of the past in this announcement and asked the FCC for a timeline to shut-down.
This is ironic for several reasons
1. In the 2003 Triennial Review the FCC gave the RBOC's Broadband Relief in return for allowing the CLEC's to still have access to UNE.
2. As FCC Chairman Martin stated
"This relief will enable AT&T to have the flexibility to further deploy its broadband services and fiber facilities without overly burdensome regulations," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in a statement. "The relief afforded to AT&T is consistent with and similar to the relief provided in Commission decisions regarding broadband services, packet switching and fiber facilities."
3. This allowed AT&T and the other ROBC's to invest in fiber and not have to share it with thier competitors. They have all invested in fiber, fiber-to-the-home specifically, in the names of U-verse and FiOS.
4. A few months later the RBOC's took away UNE anyway
Go here to read the rest of the post: http://blog.tmcnet.com/voip-peering/2010/01/att-declares-pstn-a-relic---it-already-was.html
