How many still have a Landline in their home?

[Grumpycat]

Landlines will work up until the time telcos are no longer responsible to maintain them.

Remember the original analog cellphone technology called AMPS? That I first paid attention in 2004 the FCC said carriers may not remove AMPS cell sites before 2007.

My (not for long) employer was invested in AMPS and wouldn't let me pursue GSM or Verizon's CDMA. Sent letters to customers, "Oh, the FCC is only saying carriers may take AMPS offline in 2007. There is so much AMPS it will be around for a long time!"

First day they could take AMPS sites down, they started falling like a house of cards. Carriers could handle 10-100 more calls on the same precious bandwidth using GSM.

I was long gone in 2007. Later visited and found having lost the talent (me) to revise the PCB they hired a consultant to design an adapter board for the new data radio. I could have changed the original product's PCB for the new radio in a couple hours. But wasn't volunteering. They had the CAD software and original digital artwork. Just didn't have anyone competent to make the change.

 

[Grumpycat]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, because I admit I didn’t read every post, but a true landline is a dedicated self powered 4 wire cable.

4 wires is usually run in the walls but POTS only uses the center 2. The outer 2 are available for a 2nd line which few homeowners have.

Remember AppleTalk? And the 3rd party PhoneNET adapters to network Apple products? Those used the outer 2 wires. Made the $7000 Apple LaserWriter viable for workgroups.

 

[WM75Guy]

I had a home office with 2 phone lines and 2 fax lines. We have 4 pair from the street to the CenturyLink demarc and I installed Cat 5e on the 25 drops in our house when we built in 2009, plus the line to the stables. They all are home runs to the 42" OnQ network panel I put in the utility closet in the garage. I used 4 OnQ 8-port switch panels to connect everything to CenturyLink. I had 3 inline modules - surge protector, DSL splitter, and home security system capture. Now that we have gone to a 5-phone wireless system, wireless security system, and I retired, I used the lines for our new security camera system. There is a 16-port switch in the panel and we use POE for the 11 cameras. One of the Cat 5e lines connects the switch to the Verizon LTE Home Internet modem/router in my office. We still have one landline with the ringer turned off we use as a fax line, all voice calls are screened by voicemail. Too many telemarketing calls to answer it.

 

[lilranch2001]

My daughter has worked for Frontier since they bought out Verizon, and she stated to me last week they are actively abandoning copper lines daily.

 

[3930dave]

I had a home office with 2 phone lines and 2 fax lines. We have 4 pair from the street to the CenturyLink demarc and I installed Cat 5e on the 25 drops in our house when we built in 2009, plus the line to the stables. They all are home runs to the 42" OnQ network panel I put in the utility closet in the garage. I used 4 OnQ 8-port switch panels to connect everything to CenturyLink. I had 3 inline modules - surge protector, DSL splitter, and home security system capture. Now that we have gone to a 5-phone wireless system, wireless security system, and I retired, I used the lines for our new security camera system. There is a 16-port switch in the panel and we use POE for the 11 cameras. One of the Cat 5e lines connects the switch to the Verizon LTE Home Internet modem/router in my office. We still have one landline with the ringer turned off we use as a fax line, all voice calls are screened by voicemail. Too many telemarketing calls to answer it.

Re-utilize amortized assets.... often not a bad plan.....

Not sure about today, but years back, Bell here "recycled" some copper.... system was called DVACS. They looked @ all the idled copper they had, and decided to market a low-speed data service commercially. ATM service to the big banks was one market. Dedicated low-speed circuits, segmented from the internet, has meaning to certain markets - or at least it did, back then.

Trade publication I was reading, 1 or 2 years back.... (either Telco, or Resources)..... listed China as installing as much copper domestically, as the total we had done in North America since 1900, every year, for the next 6 or 7 years.

Something to think about ^, when you consider that one way or the other, PRC has access to every technology on the planet.

Rgds, D.

 

[hodge]

We do. No cell service, and if the power goes out, we lose wifi. So, we keep the landline.

 

[LouNY]

We do. No cell service, and if the power goes out, we lose wifi. So, we keep the landline.

I have heard this before.
Why do you lose WIFI if the power goes out. A simple ups can power a WIFI/Router for a considerable time.

 

[3930dave]

I have heard this before.
Why do you lose WIFI if the power goes out. A simple ups can power a WIFI/Router for a considerable time.

I've done that ^, for a long time..... but, it illustrates "progress" in communication systems.....

Sorta looping back, to why ur started this thread, my neighbour is a good example. Now a widow, with no interest in the internet, she just needs something that hangs on the wall, and works, for a phone. She has a cell phone (insisted upon, by her adult children), but uses it so infrequently that she is not that familiar with it, and it may not even be charged, when the grid is out.

The old POTS, hanging on the wall, supplied -48vdc from the CO, pretty much worked, and little/no explanation re. how to use it was ever needed.

At the other end..... chatting with my neighbour yesterday, after noticing their "house" # not working. Their Magicjack was set up by an elderly relative a few years back, who forgot to let them know to renew this year. The password is forgotten, so Can't Get There From Here, in terms of paying the fee, and retaining the existing #.

I swear, it's just getting dumber all the time........ For over 2 months after the fee lapsed, MagicJack would allow calls to come In, but not Out. Yet, nobody @ MJack could bother to call, go through a live validation, to solve the Catch 22.

Carrier pigeons, anyone ?

The Incredible Carrier Pigeons of the First World War

Rgds, D.

 

[JethroB]

Before I got StarLink for internet service I had Windstream telco for DSL service . A decent reliable 10 Mbps. The Windstream service came with a landline whether you wanted it or not. That ticked me off. Per month charges, roughly:

Internet $55
Wifi box rental $10
Landline $15
Landline taxes & junk fees $25
Total $105/month

Starlink was $110 when I signed up. 100 Mbps+ at that time. No regrets.

 

[MossRoad]

I still have a landline in my house....

It's cut off at floor level in the corner of the dining room.

 

[deserteagle71]

Article out today:

Still love your landline? Phone service providers are getting closer to phasing it out

More people who are still using telephone landlines will soon need to decide if they want to finally hang up on their service.

www.yahoo.com

 

[Oaktree]

Article out today:

Still love your landline? Phone service providers are getting closer to phasing it out

More people who are still using telephone landlines will soon need to decide if they want to finally hang up on their service.

www.yahoo.com

I totally get why the telcos want to get away from copper lines...most are decades old and in bad shape, many/most of the technicians who know how to maintain that equipment have retired too. Time marches on.
OTOH, I don't think it's right to leave customers in the lurch either. To me it would suck if a cellphone was my only option, especially in much of rural America where service can be spotty.

 

[HAR]

Once again, very late to the party. I too still have a land line. Reason? DSL. Living in rural Vermont, the only way to get decent, dependable Internet. We have heard for over 20 years that cable is the way to go. It was not until last year that any hint of cable would be coming to our area. Now, today, there are two competing cable companies with cables hanging off my power pole. But still no cable. It takes a long time for all the infrastructure to be installed, configured, and tested. However, the recent AT&T cell system failure, for upwards of 12 hours, really put the shine on how safe and dependable cell coverage is. My land lines still worked. But, then again, with more and more people abandoning landlines, the telephone utilities will soon abandon the landlines as they will no longer be a profit center, if they even generate a profit now. I suspect my local phone company is just waiting for cable to be available before they drop the service. Also, while satellite and other options might be possible, rain, dense clouds, snow, etc. all limit that as a viable Internet solution. My son has a satellite system, and all the time things go wrong with that signal. It is frustrating to try and use the AInternet or stream at his place. A flock of geese will cause it to fail.

 

[MoKelly]

Our Farm (while not all that rural - meaning only 10 or so miles from a town) has zero cell phone coverage. No bars whatsoever. Nada.

So, we need a land line.

Have tried satellite for TV and internet but (as stated above) it’s not all that reliable. Never seems to work when you really want it to work.

One good thing is we have learned there are lots of other things to do rather than watch TV or be on the internet.

 

[Eagle1]

Our Farm (while not all that rural - meaning only 10 or so miles from a town) has zero cell phone coverage. No bars whatsoever. Nada.

So, we need a land line.

Have tried satellite for TV and internet but (as stated above) it’s not all that reliable. Never seems to work when you really want it to work.

One good thing is we have learned there are lots of other things to do rather than watch TV or be on the internet.

Darn and you are like 50 miles closer to the city than me....

 

[NoTrespassing]

Folks still have a land line, same number for over 50 years. I "fixed" their answering machine/wireless phones yesterday. I purchased a pair of phones/answering machine for Christmas last year and didn't have time to set them up. Yesterday I visited them for the first time since Christmas. The new phones were still in the box right where I left them 2 months ago. I said, let's make sure your old phones don't work before I set up the new ones. After recording a new message, I noticed that the answering machine button was turned OFF. I pushed the button and what do you know, the thing worked.

Dad wanted me to take the new phones with me and send them back to Amazon, lol. I said keep them for when your 7 year old phones die.

 

[DarkBlack]

I still remember when I lived in a town where the best I could get was slow DSL, while everywhere nearby had cable. I can still hear my modem making multiple dial attempts, and me waiting with my fingers
Uggh

 

[hube2]

Once again, very late to the party. I too still have a land line. Reason? DSL. Living in rural Vermont, the only way to get decent, dependable Internet. We have heard for over 20 years that cable is the way to go. It was not until last year that any hint of cable would be coming to our area. Now, today, there are two competing cable companies with cables hanging off my power pole. But still no cable. It takes a long time for all the infrastructure to be installed, configured, and tested. However, the recent AT&T cell system failure, for upwards of 12 hours, really put the shine on how safe and dependable cell coverage is. My land lines still worked. But, then again, with more and more people abandoning landlines, the telephone utilities will soon abandon the landlines as they will no longer be a profit center, if they even generate a profit now. I suspect my local phone company is just waiting for cable to be available before they drop the service. Also, while satellite and other options might be possible, rain, dense clouds, snow, etc. all limit that as a viable Internet solution. My son has a satellite system, and all the time things go wrong with that signal. It is frustrating to try and use the AInternet or stream at his place. A flock of geese will cause it to fail.

Yes, the recent outage shows why land lines are still a good idea. While cable has recently become available here there are still may rural areas that do not have cable and they still maintain the phone lines. Nothing in new technology, cable, satellite, cell service, is as reliable as my land line. Satellite is likely the worst choice, anything can cause it to go out, and even when it's working the latency extremely high.

 

[bdhsfz6]

I worked for the landline division of Verizon for 40 years before retiring. Many telcos, including Verizon, have been trying to get out of the wireline business for a decade or more. Since they are regulated entities, the public utility commissions in many states require that landline service be maintained, for many of the reasons already mentioned in the thread.

It gets worse. There are still many rural "mom & pop" landline telco's around. Some are going belly up, and as they do, the larger companies are being forced to take them over.

Until the regulatory laws are changed, even though it's a losing concern, landline service will still be available.

 

[JethroB]

Once again, very late to the party. I too still have a land line. Reason? DSL. Living in rural Vermont, the only way to get decent, dependable Internet. We have heard for over 20 years that cable is the way to go. It was not until last year that any hint of cable would be coming to our area. Now, today, there are two competing cable companies with cables hanging off my power pole. But still no cable. It takes a long time for all the infrastructure to be installed, configured, and tested. However, the recent AT&T cell system failure, for upwards of 12 hours, really put the shine on how safe and dependable cell coverage is. My land lines still worked. But, then again, with more and more people abandoning landlines, the telephone utilities will soon abandon the landlines as they will no longer be a profit center, if they even generate a profit now. I suspect my local phone company is just waiting for cable to be available before they drop the service. Also, while satellite and other options might be possible, rain, dense clouds, snow, etc. all limit that as a viable Internet solution. My son has a satellite system, and all the time things go wrong with that signal. It is frustrating to try and use the AInternet or stream at his place. A flock of geese will cause it to fail.

HAR, I suspect you are correct on most fronts there. But I have found STARLINK satellite internet service to be excellent for two years now. A bit pricey upfront (~$600) and you must have a clear view of a broad range of sky though. A heavy rain will take it out for a few minutes. No snow here to contend with.