[toast0]

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders why the telcos want us to know there's lead in the wires now.

Maybe so they have an excuse to tear the wires down and end services in areas they don't care to service anymore.

Maybe so they can get more subsidies to run fiber that they'll promise to connect people with, but won't ever need to account for.

[EvanAnderson]

The telco wiring in my area (Western Ohio) is a mess. I see pedestals with the cans broken open and splices exposed all over. The ILEC in my area (Frontier) is bankrupt, but the non-bankrupt ILECs in surrounding areas are doing no better with basic maintenance.

I get angry when I see it, thinking about the history of free easements, tax abatement, subsidy, and other favorable treatment that the telcos received, historically, and how they can leave this perfectly serviceable infrastructure to rot.

[simfree]

Copper facilities across the USA are past their design life. The cables themselves might be usable (if water intrusion has not happened, which is a big if), but the splice cases, splices and hardware on either end of the cable is often not doing well.

Frontier bought assets from Verizon knowing full well they were going to ride this infrastructure until it was worthless while investing as little as possible. It is no surprise the copper plant has rotted on the poles, they treated their copper and fiber plants like trash in nearly every part of their territory.

[Aloha]

Frontier did actually surprisingly invest lots of money into their copper plant, but the copper plant had been all but ignored from the the point Bell Atlantic bought GTE.

[jollyllama]

Telco wiring is decaying here in Western PA; signal quality and reliability gets worse every year. Customer service is nonexistent, "why won't you switch to VOIP/4G?"

[bob1029]

I am strongly on board with the subsidy theory. This wouldn't be the first time.

Looking at what this is doing to the stock price of AT&T adds another potential item to your list:

Hedge funds pushing well-timed narratives to their benefit.

[jmort253]

I've often thought the same thing about someone pushing this information out there simply to push the stock prices down. I'm wondering if it all will eventually blow over and if it's a good time to invest in AT&T and Verizon...

[bob1029]

Check out some historical perspective:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

The post-breakup structure diagram is all I needed to see.

50/50 $T/$VZ long. Ez mode.

[alexzhues]

The original WSJ report used soil samples underneath old power lines to determine that there were still lead-sheathed cables leaking into the environment. And based on the responses from telco’s legal/PR departments (ie denial of health risks), this isn’t a story they wanted to leak.

[icedchai]

Yes, they probably want subsidies to remove the cable. Around here (VZ territory), they leave it to rot on the poles. Most of the area is on fiber now. If I walk around the block, I see broken copper cables, wires hanging out, squirrels nesting in the junctions, etc.

[hammock]

>Yes, they probably want subsidies to remove the cable

There's no way it's getting removed in the next 50 years without a subsidy so maybe this is...OK?

[icedchai]

I'd tend to agree, especially if they can put more fiber in place at the same time.

[ipaddr]

subsidy or environmental cleanup fee

[etempleton]

It is not a bad theory. The telecoms have been actively abandoning phone lines for years because it isn’t worth the cost for them to do so anymore, but they are still required to by law. Perhaps they think they can get the tear down and replacement with fiber subsidized.

[hanniabu]

They've probably reached a point where they're failing at a higher rate and need replacing. Leaking this info would get the government involved and the telcos can probably get the taxpayers to foot the bill replacing all of them.

[Aloha]

The cables are near end of life and unlikely to be replaced at all, because the entirety of the copper network and its associated hardware is also near end of life.

[EvanAnderson]

Given the myriad forethought, procedures, standards, and quality checks with which AT&T handled their network (pre-divestiture) I'd bet a lot telco cable plant is nowhere near "end of life".

It's just at "end of profitable life".

[Aloha]

As someone who is well versed in that, its at the end of its practical life.

Both PIC and Lead Cable pinhole overtime, the life of areal (either PIC or Leaded) cable is 30-50 years, the life of buried cable is 50-90 - all of this cable exceeds that point, and must be replaced.

The phone switches that are connected to the cable are all near or over 40 years old, and closer to 45-50 years old in design, the spares pool is surprisingly healthy (because so many switches have been decommed) but the software that runs of these switches is also near end of life - and in the sustaining engineering phase of its lifecycle.

There may be a life for some copper cable, but it will be literally the last mile. Which is a lot smaller in scope than what we have now.

[toast0]

I mean, it was probably all in great shape 40 years ago. But 40 years of missed opportunities to replace cabling failing quality checks (if they were even done) is probably taking its toll. I know of many anecdotes of poor quality lines where trouble tickets end up with a pair swap which works for several months, and then you need to swap to another pair. There's only so many spare pairs, but the silver (lead?) lining is that enough customers leave that you can take their good pairs to serve the remaining customers. I've personally experienced the poor line records that mean connecting a new customer might disconnect an old customer, leading to a service call down the street.

[Aloha]

There are also just so few customers left too.

For me as a phone nerd who would prefer to have a landline, but no longer have a good justification for it, and frankly I'm unsure if I even have a good drop anymore to my house (its not had service since 2010 - before I owned it).

I keep thinking I should reach out to AT&T and try to order services, but I just never quite get around to it.

[toast0]

Be prepared for sticker shock too. I recently set up my MIL with a CenturyLink landline here in WA, and it's $60/month. I could save a couple bucks a month if I declined long distance, but not many afaik. My California landline was less than $15/month with taxes when I turned it off, that was with no long distance and metered local calling (which was fine for me, I mostly wanted it for incoming calls and calls to toll free customer service).

[BitwiseFool]

It's certainly possible that this situation might sway Congress to pass some sort of lead wiring replacement act.

[DropInIn]

Beyond gross how often citizens are subsidizing the businesses that rob Peter to pay Paul... We should be forcing the profiteers (shareholders) to repay it and be imprisoning the thieves, not paying Peter (remediation) for them.

[bnjms]

Can tax payers also take ownership of the physical plant and sell access like we do to public airwaves? States rights should allow at least some states to do the right thing.

[hulitu]

It is usually to conceal more important news.