How to proceed with the fixed network in Austria

A report from Greenland has caused a stir in the past few days about a well-known technology: the landline telephone. The public telecommunications provider and network operator Tusass announced that customers would have to say goodbye to their connections this year. The landline service will be discontinued.

What caused a stir internationally was the justification given by the operator. Accordingly, one would have no choice due to a lack of maintenance material. It says: “The era of landline technology and telephony will be over in 2022. This means that spare parts are no longer produced, making maintenance impossible. All countries must phase out their landlines.”

So will the fixed network also be discontinued in Austria? The Austrian landline operator wants nothing to do with it. "A1 has no plans to 'turn off' landline telephony," said A1 spokesman Jochen Ohnewas-Schützenauer when asked by futurezone.

Digital landline

This is understandable, as classic landline telephony in Austria is already largely digitized. This means that it runs along with the Internet data traffic over long distances via fiber optics. Only the so-called "last mile" directly to the connections is still partially analogue, but is also increasingly being switched to digital. So as long as A1 offers fixed-line Internet connections, there would be no comprehensible reason to discontinue fixed-line telephony. Added to this is the fact that critical infrastructure, such as the emergency call systems, is also connected to the fixed line.

At A1, it is also pointed out that around 500 million euros have been invested annually in the expansion of the networks in recent years. A large part of it went into the fiber optic expansion. For customers, the bottom line is that their well-known landline phones, if they can be used now, will continue to function as usual in the foreseeable future. The technical background is the multi-frequency dialing procedure introduced in the 1990s, for which there is no expiry date. The permanent emergence of new standards, such as mobile telephony, for example. with 4G, 5G ect., does not exist in this form in the fixed network.

In any case, there is no shortage of spare parts at A1 either. The problems in Greenland could be due to outdated technology. The fact that Greenland decided to abolish it could also be due to the difficult topographical conditions and the low population density. This becomes particularly clear in a direct comparison to Austria. In Greenland, for example, there are 0.026 inhabitants per square kilometer - in Austria there are 106. The operator must therefore have extensive and expensive infrastructure for comparatively few customers.

blackout

Proponents of the fixed line like to argue that it should be preserved because it can continue to be used in the event of a widespread power failure. But that's a myth. Since they are dependent on data centers and other infrastructure, they also fail after a certain period of time in the event of a blackout.

How long you can still use them depends on whether your own connection is connected directly to the exchange or via a "grey box" (in technical jargon ARU - Access Remote Units). With a direct connection it can be 8 to 72 hours, via an ARU around 30 minutes, according to A1. Incidentally, you can still make calls with your mobile phone for just as long in the event of a power failure – provided you have a charged battery.