central offices-new?

[milardo]

Hi, central office question here. Are central offices do ever get new ones built for different areas? Also, I have a different place in San Mateo right near the 92/280 interchange freeway. I am not able to get fusion there. Is there any central office going to be built there?

[wa2ibm]

Although it's possible, I seriously doubt it.

I really don't know and have no insight into how that's calculated, but having said that, AT&T's strategy has been to build out their u-Verse infrastructure instead of using large CO's that primarily support the old copper plant. The u-Verse terminals that you see spread around are fed with fiber that doesn't even go back to the nearest CO, but rather to the larger regional offices.

Additionally, AT&T is now forcing traditional DSL customers off of the old DSLAMs, located at the CO's or in Remote Terminals, and moving them over to the u-Verse VDSL plant. Thus, my speculation that they're relying less on traditional CO's (which they have to share with competitors) and more on the u-Verse infrastructure (which they don't have to share).

Edit: Add to the last sentence.

[virtualmike]

Not very likely with today's technology. Before 1985, if a territory that had not had phone service in the past suddenly started getting settled and there was a lot of demand for phone service, a phone company typically would file to offer service in that area, and once granted, that phone company would run copper and build a CO.

Today, such an area would typically get a remote terminal or a VRAD, depending on the entity offering service. Or perhaps just a wireless offering, if the area was large.

Most definitely in the areas where service is already offered, the telcos won't build any new COs. They'll use the existing outside plant to continue offering traditional voice service (unless SB 1161 gets rammed through without any amendments), and they'll install remote terminals and/or VRADs to extend digital services to the areas where they believe the demand for digital service will provide sufficient ROI.