Are Landlines Doomed to Extinction? - Comments Page 2

We have to have a land line because my spouse has a pacemaker that is monitored whenever she is near the monitor. I don't think that would work very well with VOIP or a Cell Phone. The land line is still the most reliable communication device.

I have POTS service and ADSL superimposed on top of that. We also carry mobile phones when we're not home as well. I'm a retired communication electrician and know that POTS is reliable, whereas all the other services are not. Now, it is possible that I'm actually on VoIP without my knowledge as the old Nortel DMS100 and GTE GTD5 switches that I'm familiar with (and others makes as well) are being phased out and it is very possible that it has been replaced by a digital service in the Central Office, but my POTS phone still works when everything else fails. I won't give it up without a fight.

We live in a rural area with very sketchy Internet service. We depend on DSL delivered by Verizon over a landline. What will folks like us do for Internet service if DSL is abondoned?

EDITOR'S NOTE: My assumption is that in very rural areas, the phone company will be required to maintain the copper lines, or provide some alternative. Your local phone company should be able to provide a more definitive answer.

We just had to fixed our DSL service because Verizon doesn't really want to. Last month after arguing with Verizon's India based tech department, we got a technician out. He found the problem in the local distribution box - a mouse had chewed through one of the two wires. But he couldn't be bothered to clean the contacts from their highly oxidized state. So last week we went out with some fine sand paper and probably broke all kinds of regulations and laws and fixed it properly. I can't wait til they have fiber locally.

I don't think anyone can predict how long before POTS can be abandoned, given the nature of our communication laws.Your talking about a tremendous
expense in adding and removing facilities.

I have worried about this for a long time. As I recall, landlines were partially designed to always be of use. Now, we have systems that will not always be of use.

Five years ago, I tired of paying Insight $25 dollars a month ($35 after taxes and fees) for phone service. After weighing my options, I went with Ooma. The equipment I needed was $199 at Walmart.com but is now much less expensive. We couldn't be happier. Call quality is great, we have local and long distance calling with caller ID and voicemail for about $3.80 a month. Of course, it's true the there is no service when the internet is out but that doesn't happen often enough to be a problem.

I like my land line. When I want to make call, I only do it at home unless I order some food
to-go while I am out. I have an old cell phone. Don't know how to text and I have no desire to learn. I watch TV on an old analog set that is probably 15 years old. In fact I am really growing tired of electronics and trying to keep up to date with the latest gadgets. I have spent the past 30 years working on computers back in the days of DOS. You didn't have to concern yourself with hacking into them.

I really wish you'd get off this "anti-landlines" kick. The primary, if not only, reason the major telecoms want to get rid of landlines (copper) is because they fall under different & more stringent telecommunications regulations. Regulations that are MUCH more beneficial to us consumers! This wouldn't be as big an issue if they replaced all copper with fiber, but they're only doing that in heavily populated areas (& very, very slowly). In rural areas, the telecoms are replacing landlines, including those with DSL, with cellular comm. This truly sucks for Internet users, with extremely large fee increases & minuscule bandwidth caps. Right now, DSL is pretty much the only competitor to cable & what little fiber is out there. DSL over copper is theoretically capable of 100+Mbps and 40Mbps is common now in many areas of the country. We need more, not fewer, competitors to cable - and DSL is pretty much the only competitor out there. DSL serves MANY, MANY consumers in localities where cable is not available. Getting rid of landlines has resulted in much worse Internet connectivity for those affected by these decisions. Just my two cents worth...

EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm not anti-landline. I'm just making people aware of changes that are coming, and alternatives that are available now. If landlines disappear, it won't be my fault. :-)

I cut Ma Bell a few years ago with the purchase of MagicJack, then MJ plus. Several months ago, the quality of the calls deteriorated and the device had to be rebooted at least once a day. We never knew when we would miss a call. I finally switched to NetTalkDuo. Customer service is as bad a MJ's but we have not had any problems so far.

@Walt, I still have an old dial pulse handset in the basement that I use when we have a power outage but I wonder how long the telcos will maintain the battery banks to power the system vs going to AC to Dc power supplies that will be useless in a power outage.

Bob, "doomed to extinction" is exactly right.

If 50% of phone users have stopped using POTS, the remaining 50% have to pay twice the cost per line to maintain the service. Increasing the price drives away more users, so you have a classic death spiral.

Business lines are probably closer to 90% VOIP, so consumers are picking up that loss of revenue as well.

And since most people with land lines also have cell phones, the cost of POTS is not an either-or, but a both-and.

Doomed to extinction indeed. As surely as ice deliveries in the summer and coal deliveries in the winter.

Ok, all those VOIP services are fine, but I make and receive clear calls over VOIP entirely FREE.

There was a $60 one-time cost to get the equipment, but after that I only pay for my usual Internet access. That's all!

Here's how: (1) Get a free Google Voice number. (2) Purchase an OBIhai OBi200 VoIP Telephone Adapter from Walmart for $46 (3) Purchase an ordinary telephone, either hard-wired or cordless. I got a nice Vtech cordless from Walmart.com for $14.

You plug the OBIhai unit into your modem or router, you plug the phone into the OBIhai unit and then login to your Google Voice number and set up Google Chat and you've got a working phone with dial tone. Works great, and no extra monthly charge!

I believe it will happen, but not in the 5 to 10 year timeframe. There is still the need to keep POTS/PSTN around for some time particularly in the rural and other out of the way places. But on the other hand, since the telcos are pushing to phase out POTS' aging infrastructure, they'll seek to raise the price of POTS to force people to VoIP and IP alternatives. The justification is that when there were millions of subscribers, the cost could be spread amongst an number of subscribers. But when you get to a very low number of subscribers, the cost needs to be spread amongst the smaller group and thus the price has to go up. Or the worst case is that the IP altneratives would have to subsidize POTS and that is what I don't want to happen. While the US government maybe taking a hands off approach, the PUC (which tends to be by State) still has a say.

I see there are no shortages of POTS believers. It seems to me it is about like the progressive thinkers have to remove it if it always works.
I have UVERSE and MJ and do like the clarity but there is always the what if. You can't call a cell if the tower is down from a POTS anyhow.

Seriously, being forced to cut the cord to my landline would be to cut off the only RELIABLE way I've been able to communicate over the years.
Sure, there have been times the phone lines were down, but for every time that's happened, there have been at least 10 times as many internet outages in the same period of time. Just yesterday, Time Warner suffered a coast to coast outage that has yet to be totally explained.
Also, landlines have much better call quality than cell phones.
Can you hear me now?

Great reading re landline phones. I'm a senior and have disconnected from Cable TV - I have Roku. I have a cell phone that's okay but I don't live near any towers so service is not the best. Guess I'll have to see what time brings but if they discontinue my landline I will be one grizzly old lady bear. I embrace technology (just bought a dash cam) but there is nothing as reliable as my landline. And that's that! Happy New Year....

I hope you're wrong on this one. I live 3 miles from a town of 12k in Missouri and can only get 3mb DSL. There is no cable and with the amount of data I use there is no way cell or satellite is an option due to cost. There are many places within a 20 mile radius of me that have no or spotty cell service, copper is their only choice.

I agree with Eleanor Forman. Land lines work so well, clear connections and no dropped calls. We give it up for poor connections, often must ask, can you repeat that? And more expensive for the consumer. I know my phone company wants to push us off the copper wires, and pushes many to VOIP when they did not know it. One friend reports the calls over VOIP with the fiber optic cable as having echoes and other problems of poor quality acoustics. Duplicate systems are much wiser, storms take lines down, more often electricity than copper phone wires.

thanks for all the info you send i read every one thanks again harry