AT&T hopes to move customers in a rural Alabama town and a suburban Florida area from the typical wired or circuit-switched telephone service to test a transition from the time-division multiplexing (TDM) phone network to Internet Protocol (IP) and wireless services.
On Friday, the carrier announced that it had selected Carbon Hill, a town of about 2,000 people, and West Delray Beach, a town of 60,000, for the trials. The transition will likely be completed by 2020, the phone company said, noting that the trials are designed to locate operational, logistical and technical transition requirements and issues.
The trials will have AT&T's customers transferred from TDM to U-Verse wireline voice and Internet, or to wireless home data and phone services of AT&T Mobility. Subscribers can use the wireless services if they are outside the U-Verse network coverage. The old networks will remain where they are throughout the experiment.
According to AT&T, 70 percent of their residential customers dropped the traditional phone service and replaced it with wireless service or voice over IP (VoIP); in some areas, only 20 percent of households are connected still to traditional services.
Verizon Communications tried to replace its TDM services after Hurricane Sandy, which damaged parts of New Jersey and New York in 2012. Verizon offered VoiceLink, a wireless service to the residents, instead of replacing the damaged lines. However, many customers complained that VoiceLink did not work well with Internet service, some alarm systems and fax machines.
