Tag Archives: voiceservices

Century Link asks FCC to Permit TDM Voice Shutdown

new blog image

As CenturyLink moves further with its changeover from legacy TDM, the telco has requested the FCC in a new filing to allow request to discontinue voice services of TDM in those areas where the consumers can acquire alternative services conveniently. The alternative services may comprise VoIP services from a provider such as Vonage and Ooma, or a 4G/3G service from a wireless operator.

Why CenturyLink has to request such permissions is because many of its customers have either discarded their conventional landline voice services or are utilizing VoIP. The Telco shared that one in three homes are wireless and about a third of the homes use a VoIP service. CenturyLink has lost over 70% of the residential lines since 2000, according to its projections. Regarding retail voice, the service provider has also suggested the regulator provide guidelines for the wholesale CLEC customers concerning the access to the last-mile ILEC’s facilities. This is adding a path to companies such as CenturyLink to ultimately shut down the TDM base services.

As the transition from TDM to IP will take a couple of years, the service providers have projected a conventional process to retire its copper network while delivering the new IP-based services on the existing facilities. The service provider will offer a combination of products such as Ethernet in place of DS-1 and a VDSL based products that will facilitate Ethernet to comparatively more customers. According to CenturyLink, EoDS1 products provide a more flexible and comparable alternative to DS1 and DS3 special access circuits during a transition.

However, pressuring the CenturyLink proposal is a number of competitive providers that include Windstream and Granite Telecommunications which have expressed concern saying they aren’t able to build multi-year contractual commitments to the retail business customers without the access to last-mile ILEC facilities.