The Federal Communications Commission is prepping for a future without the circuit-switched network that currently handles most of the landline and wireless calls in this country, and late yesterday released a public notice seeking comments on how to lay the regulatory groundwork for an all-IP communications network. The notice likens the transition to that of moving from analog cell phone service to digital or from analog TV to digital, but it has the potential to be much more disruptive.
That disruption will come from three factors, and the most obvious one will be familiar to us since we just went through the digital TV transition — how do we make sure everyone has access to an IP network as the old circuit-switched network fades away? Cutting off someone's copper landline isn't going to fly in many homes. Although the FCC is not proposing any sort of cut-off date, the writing is on the wall for the fate of copper landlines, and laggards will have to be transitioned off those lines as the costs of maintaining the circuit-switched network become too much for carriers to bear.
