Likewise, traditional local and long-distance telephone service over the copper network is being displaced by better technology from cable and fiber.
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Its old copper network, still 40% of its customer base, is not fast enough but FiOS is faster than most consumers need.
Verizon has been replacing high-maintenance portions of its residential copper network with fiber optics to provide enhanced services and to reduce ongoing repair costs.
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In 2012, Verizon migrated 223, 000 homes to fiber, which contributed to an 11 percent improvement in trouble reports across Verizon's entire copper network for the year.
ENGADGET: Verizon adds 'record-high' 2.1 million subscribers in Q4 2012, but still makes a loss
When it comes to voice services, the regulatory obligation that is now under scrutiny is the duty to provide universal telephone service over the old copper network.
The news comes as BT cranks up the speed on its copper network, to deliver up to 20Mbps (megabits per second) to 80% of UK homes by the end of the year.
Arbitrarily lowering the regulated price of the copper network would kneecap the competitive price umbrella for fiber broadband service thus destroying the economic return on investment case needed to fund the fiber upgrade?
Instead of laying copper cables, network operators would set up far less expensive WiMax towers, and then install WiMax telephones in subscribers' homes.
Izzo credits the "spider web" like network of copper wire, paired with coaxial and fiber crossing underneath city streets, for the network's durability.
This really was the case, absolutely so, back in the days of the main network being copper rather than the fibre optics we use today for those main cables.
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But old style phone regulations often require network operators to maintain and expand obsolete copper wires and TDM (time division multiplexing) switching technologies.
Butthat short leg from the long-distance network to homes and offices is a contorted mishmash of copper phone lines, TV cables, fiber and wireless systems.
Butthat short leg from the long-distance network to homes and offices is a contorted mish-mash of copper phone lines, TV cables, fiber and wireless systems.
Telephone companies have used fiber for two decades, but the network boxes that reroute and switch the signals have always been based on silicon chips and copper circuitry.
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