Spoke with a guy who is part of that world. Said they have started off the year pretty busy. Obviously no idea of if the finances will be able to keep up this pace for the rest of the year but seems as if they are pretty serious about getting rid of 50+% of the copper network by sometime in 25.
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Interesting Bet there’s a lot more like this. Wonder if the AP alarms were deactivated. Few years ago tech were dispatched on dead cables because this info wasn’t passed to the AP group or not passed correctly.
“ for example we had a job to cut a 2100 pair cable and 1800 lead cable sheath which the company was to get about 100k for recycling the copper and also the tax savings on the cable in the ground.
such big cables and we had maybe 20 workers on those cables.”
https://cwalocal9333.com/att-petitions-cpuc-to-stop-providing-dial-tone-in-california/
AT&T is petitioning the California Public Utility Commission to have the ability to stop providing dial tone in most of California.
I’m a CO tech and we’ve turned off 4/5th of our switch. POTS dial tone in my area is effectively dead already.
T-Mobile on the other hand…those guys are putting in 10 gig circuits ALL OVER the place. I have yet to wire up on high capacity fiber circuit for one of our own cell towers.
Plenty of work, most will go to contractors.
independent isp's and utility companies are running circles around T. the 70 year old contractors cant hold a candle to the young crews putting fiber in the ground.
Its called copper reclamation projects!
Construction tech here, I have had several jobs where I am supposed to transfer existing customers to pg or dpg count and cut big cables out of manholes.
for example we had a job to cut a 2100 pair cable and 1800 lead cable sheath which the company was to get about 100k for recycling the copper and also the tax savings on the cable in the ground.
such big cables and we had maybe 20 workers on those cables.
they even brought a special container to place it in and then its hauled off to Dallas somewhere.
so yes we are pulling these dead cables out of manholes and they are not being replaced.
How do you think the copper network was built out.
Fiber funding from American taxpayers! Hope Stinks proud of himself. You’re now officially a d-mb pipe.
Contractors are throwing parties with all the work T pushes their way.
Fiber is a change in the transport network equipment/facilities and with that, the eventual retirement of the more expensive copper network. It’s a capex heavy investment and has taken decades to implement while trying to maintain ROI. It’s a needed technology improvement with more room to grow for future needs and products. If the government would put more backing behind it than BEAD, it would happen much faster and benefit the whole country.
Well they did say on the earnings call that they planned to have the debt down to the 2.4-2.5 range around the first half of 25. Getting the debt down and funding this fiber build done in 25 is probably eating up a huge portion of the discretionary cash flow.
That means more debt, which always makes me want to ur----e spontaneously.