> Sprawling networks can be upgraded with gateways and bridges where wholesale replacement isn't viable. Rural services (telephony, electricity, water, gas, sewerage, postal, ...) are often noneconomical and in the US there's a long tradition of either cooperatives or government-run (often municipally-organised) services, and/or steep subsidies.
this is really overly optimistic, you underestimate how moribund the traditional telco/copper POTS line/dialtone service is. the various ILECs around the USA and their patchwork of territories are putting the bare minimum into keeping some of this stuff running. nobody is going to retrofit custom gateways into their network.
they'll spend money on lobbyists and lawyers to fight back against doing anything other than maintaining the status quo instead.
Exactly. Back in the early 2000s there was a flurry of activity as telcos replaced old Nortel and Lucent TDM switches with IP ones made by CopperCom, Metaswitch, Taqua and the rest but a lot of that was funded by govt funds (eg USDA RUS) and even then those companies could not do anything about the copper access wiring leading into tbeir shiny new switches. So you had this weird situation where a sleek, all IP softswitch was talking IP to a gateway which spoke some TDM thing to an even older SLC96 with a gazillion copper loops hanging off of it.
I think that all those companies are dead or acquired now.
> Sprawling networks can be upgraded with gateways and bridges where wholesale replacement isn't viable. Rural services (telephony, electricity, water, gas, sewerage, postal, ...) are often noneconomical and in the US there's a long tradition of either cooperatives or government-run (often municipally-organised) services, and/or steep subsidies.
this is really overly optimistic, you underestimate how moribund the traditional telco/copper POTS line/dialtone service is. the various ILECs around the USA and their patchwork of territories are putting the bare minimum into keeping some of this stuff running. nobody is going to retrofit custom gateways into their network.
they'll spend money on lobbyists and lawyers to fight back against doing anything other than maintaining the status quo instead.