Suomalaisen kupariverkon aikakausi astui lähemmäksi loppuaan tänään Lahdessa, kun DNA sammutti viimeisen lankapuhelinverkkoa palvelleen puhelinkeskuksensa. Harjukadulla sijaitsevan keskuksen virrat katkaisi symbolisesti DNA:n toimitusjohtaja Jussi Tolvanen.

Yksinkertainen kytkimen napsahdus päätti yli 140 vuotta kestäneen historian. Kuparilankojen kautta välitetty puheliikenne on ollut osa DNA:n ja sen historiallisten edeltäjien toimintaa jo 1800-luvun lopulta lähtien. Lahdessa lankapuhelintoimintaa harjoitettiin yhtäjaksoisesti vuodesta 1907 alkaen, yhteensä 119 vuoden ajan.

Kupariverkot olivat aikanaan suomalaisen tietoyhteiskunnan perusta. Puheliikenteen rinnalle tuli datansiirto jo 1960-luvulla, ja ensimmäiset kuitukokeilut käynnistyivät Suomessa 1970-luvun lopulla. Viime vuosina kupariverkkoa on käytetty enää rajallisesti lankapuhelinliittymiin ja vanhaan xDSL-laajakaistatekniikkaan, jonka suorituskyky ei vastaa nykyisiä tarpeita.

DNA ilmoitti kupariverkkojensa alasajosta jo vuonna 2021. Siirtymä moderneihin kaapeli-, valokuitu- ja mobiiliverkkoihin toteutettiin vaiheittain, ja viimeiset kuparipohjaiset yrityspalvelut päättyivät Lahdessa vuoden 2025 lopulla. Tämä mahdollisti viimeisen puhelinkeskuksen sammuttamisen nyt tammikuussa 2026.

ADSL katkeaa – Yhteydellä vielä noin 20 käyttäjää | Mikrobitti https://share.google/KtKX6oywPpQ9PkiER

Legendaarinen nettiyhteys ajetaan alas
https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000011601620.html

Market-oriented AT&T wants to speed up shutdown of legacy service rural and low-income users rely on
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Market-oriented-AT-T-wants-to-speed-up-shutdown-of-legacy-service-rural-and-low-income-users-rely-on_id166082?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Ecb&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2JfHWLAwOi38Kjpazf04TtVtuN8RivCBVWbVkM9Le33zpBLeOzhlE8Qc8_aem_UK_Qpf5tzsyr8jWrZS-nWw#Echobox=1734914051

AT&T is hopeful that the incoming administration will help it accelerate the dismantling of its copper networks, which it plans to retire by the end of 2029.

AT&T has so far continued supporting copper landlines, which are known as plain old telephone service, or POTS. Only 5 percent of the company’s residential subscribers still use the copper-wire phone network, which costs it $6 billion a year.

While the outgoing Democrat-led Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wasn’t opposed to the company ditching copper, according to CEO John Stankey, he believes the new administration will be more supportive.

POTS is obsolete, but many people are still hanging onto it because it’s usually self-powered, making it the most reliable way to contact emergency services when natural disasters strike. Some customers, such as those from low-income households, can either not afford cellular service or don’t have access to mobile networks or broadband internet because they reside in rural areas.

AT&T has introduced a landline alternative called Phone-Advanced that can run on both its mobile network and fiber to ensure no customer is left without a voice or 911 service. It can support all services that are dependent on POTS, such as fax machines and alarm systems, and has many of the same features, including caller ID and call waiting. The FCC has yet to approve Phone Advanced as a landline replacement.

AT&T hopes to convince its customers that Phone-Advanced will prove to be as robust as copper landlines.

In areas where Phone-Advanced is not available, the company will provide satellite service to its customers to keep them connected. In places with no alternative option, voice service will continue to be provided for as long as needed.

20 out of 21 states have given it the go-ahead to proceed with the multiyear transition.

Kupariverkko on palvellut televiestintää jo yli 160 vuotta, mutta sen merkitys on jäänyt viime vuosina hyvin pieneksi. DNA tiedotti jo vuonna 2021 kupariverkkojensa korvaamisesta moderneilla kaapeli-, valokuitu- ja mobiiliratkaisuilla, ja vanhan verkon purkutyö alkoi 2022. DNA:n viimeistenkin kuluttajille suunnattujen kuparipohjaisten puhepalveluiden päättäminen tapahtuu vuoden 2024 loppuun mennessä koko Suomessa.

Kupariverkkoa on käytetty viime vuosina lähinnä lankapuhelinten ja vanhan xDSL-laajakaistatekniikan yhteyksiin, joissa nopeus yltää korkeintaan muutamaan kymmeneen megaan. Kupariverkkoa ei siis tule sekoittaa nykyaikaisiin kaapeli- tai kuituverkkoihin, jotka mahdollistavat gigaluokan yhteydet, ja joihin DNA investoi jatkossakin merkittävästi. Nämä tekniikat yhdessä mobiiliratkaisujen kanssa ovatkin kupariverkon nykyaikaisia korvaajia.

From its earliest days, the PSTN was centered around copper, with each and every subscriber getting at least one pair of copper wires connected from their home or business. These pairs, referred to collectively and somewhat loosely as the “local loop,” were gathered together into increasingly larger bundles on their way to a central office (CO) housing the switchgear needed to connect one copper pair to another. For local calls, it could all be done within the CO or by connecting to a nearby CO over copper lines dedicated to the task; long-distance calls were accomplished by multiplexing calls together, sometimes over microwave links but often over thick coaxial cables.

Fiber optic cables and wireless technologies have played a large part in making all the copper in the local loops and beyond redundant, but the fact remains that something like 800,000 metric tons of copper is currently locked up in the PSTN. And judging by the anti-theft efforts that Home Depot and other retailers are making, not to mention the increase in copper thefts from construction sites and other soft targets, that material is incredibly valuable. Current estimates are that PSTNs are sitting on something like $7 billion worth of copper.

That sure sounds like a lot, but what does it really mean? Assuming that the goal of harvesting all that largely redundant PSTN copper is to support decarbonization, $7 billion worth of copper isn’t really that much. Take EVs for example. The typical EV on the road today has about 132 pounds (60 kg) of copper, or about 2.5 times the amount in the typical ICE vehicle. Most of that copper is locked up in motor windings

What about on the generation side? Thirteen million new EVs are going to need a lot of extra generation and transmission capacity, and with the goal of decarbonization, that probably means a lot of wind power. Wind turbines take a lot of copper; currently, bringing a megawatt of on-shore wind capacity online takes about 3 metric tons of copper. A lot of that goes into the windings in the generator, but that also takes into account the wire needed to get the power from the nacelle down to the ground, plus the wires needed to connect the turbines together and the transformers and switchgear needed to boost the voltage for transmission. So, if all of the 800,000 metric tons of copper currently locked up in the PSTN were recycled into wind turbines, they’d bring a total of 267,000 megawatts of capacity online.