Obsolete Integrated Circuits

Fiber Dividend or New Digital Divide?

From the carriers’ point of view, it was a tale of two technologies: It was the best of inventions; it was the worst of inventions. It drastically reduced some costs, but threatened an established business model.  Fiber optics certainly did spark a revolution in telecommunications, but counter-revolutionary forces of monopoly have been doing their best for the past 30 years to keep it at bay and preserve the old way of doing business.  And while they have not been entirely successful, their efforts, and the regulators who protect them, are still impeding progress. The incumbent carriers are using pre-fiber pricing models, based on voice-equivalent channels, to gouge customers of their monopoly facilities, especially when Special Access rates apply.

Fiber optics were a revolutionary technology, like the integrated circuits that computers are made of. But we have only seen part of the fiber dividend that should have resulted from their deployment. We’re paying copper prices in a fiber world. While available fiber speeds have risen, carrier services haven’t keep up with Moore’s Law , especially in the United States. And it’s largely a national phenomenon: While the US once led the world in “broadband” services, and pioneered competitive telecom, domestic services are now costlier and slower than those in most other industrialized countries. What we see instead is a growing digital divide between the higher speeds and lower prices available on fully-competitive routes, where Moore’s Law is allowed to operate, and the atrophy of the ILEC monopolies’ ancient regime. 

Living in a vacuum-tube past

In the days before fiber optics, transmission was by far the most expensive component of the telecommunications industry. A long-distance phone call was expensive to deliver because the transmission facilities were themselves costly. Before the 1920s, every call required separate wires. Then multiplexing was developed. The analog multiplexing systems of the mid-20th century treated phone calls like radio channels, though the capacity of most coaxial cable and microwave radio transmission systems was quite limited. As the cost of transmission gradually fell, so did the cost of long-distance calling and leased circuits, as tubes gave way to transistors and digital systems like T1 began to appear.

Buying Reliable Obsolete Semiconductors and Integrated Circuits

The purchase of  obsolete semiconductors and integrated circuits should be done from quality and reliable suppliers mainly because of the threat of acquiring counterfeit parts, or parts that simply do not perform as intended.  As the quantity of counterfeit parts in the supply chain increases, the risk of under-performing components that do not meet quality standards used in electronic manufacturing equipment increases as well.  This will directly production and could also effect the lives and safety of the men and women in our armed forces, if used in military applications.  When parts are not actually mil-spec, they could fail in conditions or at temperatures that they should have been made to withstand. Semiconductors and  integrated circuits can be military-spec components, as well as; mil-spec connectors, passive components and other electronic hardware.  Proven reliable distributors either have the obsolete IC or semiconductor parts you require in their own stock or they have access to it through another reputable supply chain partner.  Purchasing parts from an unreliable electronic components distributor results in increasing the chance of counterfeit components dramatically. Admired Services Electronic Components  only acquires integrated circuits and semiconductor parts from the most reliable and domestic suppliers within the industry - if it is not in our stock already.  Testing and traceability are available by request.  Admired Services Electronic Components supports the men and women in the armed forces and only supply them with the highest quality mil-spec electronic components, ICs and semiconductors.

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