Geekly Update - 03 April 2013

Greedy telcos! They just want to be able to charge even higher rates for service. For many telephone users, there are specific needs for having a landline. Most home security systems require a landline to operate properly. What about 911 service and the need to instantly know an exact location? Many areas don't get a reliable cell phone signal (mine included) and there are lots of areas that don't meet the requirements for VoIP.

The Walmart genius who thought out the delivery scam needs their bumps felt

I think things are the same in the USA as the UK and base this comment on that assumption.

Taking payment for a delivery (even goods or credit is payment) constitutes 'For Hire or Reward'.

This invalidates insurance cover. Driving without insurance is a serious Criminal offence and 'Ignorance of the Law is no defence in the eyes of the Law'.

I don't think that even Walmart could get insurance for unspecified vehicles with unspecified drivers on unspecified journeys with unspecified goods, at any price.

Probably another Mba graduate?

I first thought the prediction of the end of landline telephone service was another "GOTCHA". But when I read the linked Des Moines Register article I realized this was a serious proposal. Removal of landline service will cause great hardship for the elderly and technically challenged persons. In addition, statistics showing many homes have both landline and wireless phone service ignore the fact that many wireless phones are owned and used by the younger generation, people that eventually (hopefully!) will leave the nest! Those wireless phones will leave with them. I suspect there are ways to trim costs of landline service without eliminating it.

As a mathematician, I wonder how you calculated that this article makes me 146% smarter? Smarter guys want to know!

Perhaps the landline can't be ended as it remains a legal part of national defense and government (no matter who owns the wire). Is it?

Dumping the elderly is cold. Are those who advocate change going to come up with a phone that feels and works exactly the same as a landline model - change is something some elderly can no longer manage.

I think it would it would be a really bad idea to eliminate landline phones. People still rely on them for connections to certain services, like home alarm systems already mentioned above.

As mentioned in a previous article that you did on them, I still have mine and it is the only reliable service that I have when the power goes out in a severe storm in my area.

So the telcos expect all homes, businesses and government to use wireless or VoIP? What about the requirement (where I lived at least) that schools have an analog line to dial 911 if the power went out?

As to cloudfire, I read about that and spamhaus was the subject of a dodos that cloudfire stopped. I didn't read any reports of it taking down the Internet. The reports I read we're concerning mail services not being able to get themselves off the blacklist.

There is another big expense associated with traditional landlines that the telcos would happily be rid of. Each and every old-school landline phone is powered by the phone line itself. The telcos have to buy or generate electricity to power them. That's a big reason they're pushing fiber-optic land-lines. The plus side for customers with the old system is that during power failures, the phone will frequently keep working. With fiber optic (FO) or VoIP systems, the phone dies when the power does (or when the back-up battery does).

I could get along without a landline, almost all of the time.

My elderly mother couldn't. Verizon sold her on a FO connection a couple of years ago (I did warn her about this issue) and since then, we've had several storms that have knocked power out for longer than the generous almost-a-whole-day that the back-up battery holds out.

My girlfriend possibly could do without a landline but refuses to. Her argument is bolstered by the fact that during and after hurricane (or whatever the heck it was by the time it hit the NY metro area) Sandy and the winter storm which followed it, she was without power for a total of almost 2 weeks (not all of it in a row)-- and never lost landline phone service.

With regards to the telephone land lines being discontinued and replaced solely with cell phones and wireless devices; when there is a major power outage, storm, or communication towers are damaged or destroyed, wireless/cell phones are useless. Without the towers to bounce the signals, cell phones are dead. Land line phones will still work during a power outage. Anyone recall a novel from years ago called: Prophet Blind. All the communication satelites were destroyed by a rogue satelite that roamed around from one to the other until there was only one left; Prophet. The last message send from it was Prophet Blind. It was a fictional story about becoming overly dependent on technology and wireless devices. All of the land lines and underwater cables had been disconnected.

I agree with Byron M's comment. There is still a need for landline phones. Where I live, we have a lot of power surges and power outages during severe weather. I need my landline in order to make calls.

This is just another way for the major telecoms to make even more $$$$$$ off of us, for using our smartphones.