Time for FCC to Set Date for Retiring the PSTN, Advisory Committee Says
The FCC’s Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) is slated to recommend that the FCC take steps to “turn off” the public switched telephone network (PSTN). TAC is examining a proposed “sunset date” for the PSTN, informed in part by when broadband is available everywhere under the National Broadband Plan and the rollout of wireless, said TAC officials at a meeting Wednesday. TAC, the advisory panel chaired by Tom Wheeler, met at the FCC Wednesday to discuss what may be its most controversial series of recommendations yet. TAC was recently rechartered for a two-year term with Wheeler again at the helm.
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A draft report by a TAC working group recommends that the FCC “take steps to prepare for the inevitable transition from the PSTN.” The report also recommends setting a date for the transition when the PSTN would no longer be “the system” of record for the U.S. Among other recommendations are that the FCC examine some form of subsidy for helping public safety answering points make the transition to IP.
The report also is expected to examine how regulation needs to change so companies can deploy emerging technologies, which regulations should be kept in place, and which should be eliminated. Working group members agreed to do more work on the implications for regulation of retiring the PSTN in time for TAC’s next meeting in September.
"If anything we probably wanted to make the recommendations a little more provocative,” said working group Chairman Adam Drobot, chief technology office of 2M Companies. “As the IP-based solutions become richer and richer … the PTSN will very naturally start decaying. The question is how long do you carry it.” In the end, Wheeler suggested, since everything is just an app in the IP world, there’s “no difference between voice and Angry Birds.”
Drobot said the working group is still exploring how wireless fits in to the sweeping changes in wireline. “We thought we had underplayed the role of wireless,” he said. The working group also has not yet agreed on a “date that makes sense” for retiring the PSTN, he said.
Dale Hatfield, of the University of Colorado-Boulder, said wireless can’t displace wireline, since wireless connections need a fixed connection and mostly fixed backhaul. “The wireless is going to be a pretty short distance to be able to get the frequency reuse to be able to meet the capacity requirements,” he said. Most wireless traffic “is going to go over a fixed network.”
"We are not talking about sunsetting copper,” Drobot clarified. “We're not talking about sunsetting fixed connections. We're talking about sunsetting the aspect of that infrastructure that deals with voice only."
Wheeler conceded that the whole topic of a PSTN phase out is bound to prove controversial. “This is the first time at least I have heard at a body like this” complete a “discussion about, ‘Hey folks, its coming to an end and we need to start preparing for it,'” he said.
The last TAC meeting tackled “low-hanging fruit,” Wheeler said. “We're getting to some serious stuff in this meeting and there’s been serious work put into it.” In April, TAC made eight recommendations to the FCC (CD April 16 p1). Work has started on four of them, according to a “report card” from the FCC, Wheeler said. Debate over the PSTN report shows “there’s no easy lifting here,” he said.