AT&T asks FCC to grandfather private line voice service in BellSouth territory
AT&T asks FCC to grandfather private line voice service in BellSouth territory
AT&T (NYSE: T) has asked the FCC for permission to shut down its BellSouth Analog Voice Grade Private Line services in the Carbon Hill, Ala., serving wire center and in the Kings Point, Fla., serving wire center, marking another step in its TDM-to-IP transition.
After it gets regulatory approval, the service provider said it would discontinue offering this service in its IP-Trial wire centers in February.
As a legacy TDM-based service, BellSouth Analog Voice Grade Private Line provides an analog channel for the transmission of asynchronous, or synchronous serial data at rates of up to 19.2, 50.0, or 230.4 Kbps. AT&T also offers optional arrangements for this service at 18.74 or 40.08 Kbps.
Since there’s no demand for the service in the Trial Wire Centers for this service, AT&T said that local businesses would not be “impaired by the grandfathering of this service because there is no customer demand for this service.” In its place, it offers a set of IP-based replacement services that provide the same functionality over a more flexible architecture.
AT&T offers local business customers its Switched Ethernet 2.0 Mbps (ASE 2.0) service and AT&T Business DSL Internet service (IPDSL) as replacements for Analog Private Line services. The ASE 2.0 Mbps service is an Ethernet transport services that offers a variety of configurations, while the IPDSL service is a high speed Internet service for small to medium businesses that allows customers to send and receive data over existing telephone lines.
Private line voice is just one TDM service AT&T is looking to shut down in these wiring centers. Earlier this month, AT&T petitioned the FCC to let it discontinue its analog video service.
This latest service discontinuance request comes after the company reported in October that while more customers are purchasing IP-based services in these two markets, that is happening at a slower pace.
After kicking off the TDM-to-IP trial last May, the service provider said in an FCC filing highlighting its progress in these two markets that it saw TDM-based service subscriptions continue to decline in its consumer and business segments.