The FCC has issued an order that mandates all copper-based telecommunications infrastructure in the US be replaced with alternative services.

With the FCC and telephone providers aggressively working towards the retirement of copper lines across the nation, Plain Old Telephone Services, or "POTS", will only get more expensive to maintain and even more difficult to get. Proper planning is required, otherwise a disruption to your service can give your business, building, and other commercial properties big challenges to overcome, not to mention potential liabilities, if not addressed urgently…..and there is no time to wait.

Most major telecom carriers across the country have been phasing them out for some time now. This copper infrastructure, and the central equipment it's connected to, across the nation is nearly a century old and requires tremendous expense to maintain. 

Commercial buildings require FLS - Fire, Life, Safety systems: life-saving emergency communications solutions that run natively on these analog lines (POTS) to include: Fire Alarms, Elevators, Security Systems, and more. 

Building owners and property managers must find alternatives. One option is to replace or retrofit all of your current FLS systems, which will be extremely expensive and highly disruptive. Another option is to find FLS certified and approved technologies that can provide current analog line connected building systems with the same connections they need while satisfying the FCC mandate. 

Cloud 9 can provide you with critical guidance to prepare you and reduce the risk around analog and POTS line replacement options to include:

• Identify and evaluate alternative vendors – Find the right providers with the right, qualified solutions
• Redundancy Planning – Make sure you have an alternative and the backups that you need
• Cost Reduction – Tips for savings 40-60% over current POTS
• Reliability and Scope – Review replacement options to properly support and scale to business needs

As a building owner or property manager, you want to be ahead of the curve to ensure continued and uninterrupted service to your critical FLS and other building systems. At present, you may be relying on POTS lines for your phones, fax machines, security systems, fire alarms, emergency elevator phones, and other building systems. Switching to the latest POTS replacement technologies and digital systems (these are sometimes referred to as ePOTS or vPOTS), you won't have to go through the hassle and huge expense of upgrading all your building systems! POTS replacement solutions will plug right in to your current systems!

About Cloud 9

Cloud 9 Advisers is a client-only, client-focused agency and consulting group offering vendor selection and management services to help you solve IT, telecommunications, cloud,  and other technology problems fast. We'll walk you through the identification, research, evaluation, and comparison process, provide presentable documentation and due diligence, and oversight of solution implementation on any of our 250+ vendors, carriers, and service providers. 

Our teams of vendor-neutral engineers will help you slice through the marketing fluff and  industry jargon so you know what you're buying. We'll help you make smart IT investments quickly and confidently. Reach out to us today!