I have my doubts.
My reason for keeping my Plain Old Telephone Service is quality. I lke being able to hear what is happening on the other end even when I am talking. When in conversation with someone on a cell phone, I often can’t hear them when I am talking, and vice versa. There is less of a sense of presence. I feel like the quality of telephone communication has decreased over the last 20 years.
Also, I like using a fax machine to send documents. Scanning results in an attachment, which many email systems don’t like. A fax requires a constant connection, both ways. Voice Over IP breaks data into packets, which means there is no constant connection. Bandwidth is not so precious anymore, so why cant we get full duplex connections over fiber networks?
In a large city, will there be enough bandwidth for everything to be wireless?
I still have a fax machine at work, even though junk faxes outnumber legitimate faxes 2:1.
Security of fax transmission relies on the sender using the correct fax number. Years ago a local Highschool nurses office sent me a fax that was dozens of pages long. I called the school and told them they screwed up. A few days later I got another wrong number fax from the nurses office and I called again. They were costing me money and I was getting pissed off.
The third wrong number fax broke the camel’s back. It was again medical info, and I sat down and read it. Then I called the landline of the student involved and spoke with student’s mom. I told her I was some stranger, and for all she knew a pervert. I then told her details about her daughter’s health, and I told her I knew this info because the school sent it to me.
I assume she freaked out on the school, as they finally corrected their problem.
I didn’t read the whole thread, but I can say that having your cable bring in both your phone and your internet makes it very easy to (start to) diagnose the problem if you have no internet connection. Does the phone still work? If so, then the problem is somewhere after the cable comes into the house, and we have a chance at fixing it. If not, then we basically have to wait for the cable to get repaired.
Not true. We’ve had multiple times when there was no Internet but the phone still worked and the problem was on Cox’s side. Ditto the other way around.
Like it or not, the AT&T PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) system will be shut down in the relatively near future. That means all analog copper phone lines will go dead.
It’s not an issue of whether it might work better on some edge cases. Rather, making that copper analog phone line work requires a gigantic expensive expensive infrastructure which a dwindling number of people use.
I don’t doubt that your assertion is correct. But I will point out that the link you supplied announcing the end of the POTS infrastructure is from 2014. And it’s still here.
Does the battery keep the internet going? Or just the phone? Because I think you need the internet to make any call over VoIP.
OP- you said the landline was only for emergencies so I assume your cell phone is your primary phone. I don’t see what VoIP would do for you that your cell phone won’t. Don’t be tripped up by the cable company calling it a “landline”, it’s not.
Around here, internet is far more likely to fail than landline service and I imagine that’s true in most places. As for cell, I have never lost cell service. Ever. I *have *been out of range in a huge forest, but cell service in general (because it doesn’t have to be your provider’s towers when it’s a 911 call) has never failed any place I have ever been (me being out of range is not a failure).
I see no reason for the OP to have VoIP for non-emergency use because he already has a cell phone. And I see no reason for the OP to have VoIP for emergency use
because it won’t be as reliable as a true landline, IMO.
So long as your cable landline can transmit caller id information then you have an option to keep your local 9-1-1 center informed. Contact them on their business line and ask how you can have your physical address details updated in their database. This can ensure that your number will cause their call handling system to pull up your home address.
The 9-1-1 center can provide you a ten digit number that will ring into their emergency lines too. That can allow anyone to program a contact into their home phone that will call 9-1-1 by dialing the ten digit number.
The warning is that if you move do not forget to update both the old 9-1-1 center and the new one (assuming you move to a new PSAP coverage area) to keep your information up to date. Some telco companies and PSAPs are good about doing regular updates to their Some are not.
When I had VoIP direct through Verizon, the unit included a battery intended specifically to allow the phone line to function during a power outage.
As for the utility of a “landline”, the nice thing about mine (which is now Ooma-based) is that it’s just a more satisfying phone experience. My cell provider has lackluster coverage inside my home, so calls can drop or otherwise not be easy to hear. Eventually I’m sure I’ll drop the landline, but for now it still has marginal value.
Um. “Keep the Internet going?” Well, you’re going to need a bigger battery.
There’s a cable. At their end they need power to keep their equipment going. At your end you need power to keep equipment going.* For VoIP that means at the minumum your cable modem and your VoIP device. You may need also to power a router.
With a UPS you can keep your end going for a bit during a power outage. If the outage doesn’t affect the cable company’s equipment you’re good. One problem is there’s going to be a cable company router not far from you. So an area-wide blackout is going to take that down. (Such a UPS combined with your wireless router is also good when using a laptop/tablet/etc. during a blackout.)
VoIP means that it uses the Internet just like any other networked device. (Mine is set to use a server with a name like “podunk2.VoipCo.com”.) But keep in mind that some cable companies might offer phone service via POTS. That’s not VoIP.
- Unlike POTS which provides power to classic simple phones. (Wireless phone base stations and such rely on wall power.)
I said “in the relatively near future”. The link from 2014 has no bearing on that. It only illustrates this has been common knowledge for years.
The current phase-out date for the copper PSTN network varies from country to country but in some counties it will be phased out this year.
In the US, some copper lines which age or get damaged by weather are no longer repaired. So in a sense the PSTN/POTS infrastructure is already undergoing a quiet shutdown. Re the thread title of whether cable landline (or anything else) is a good substitute for a “real” landline, this is rapidly becoming a moot point because the copper landlines and associated PSTN infrastructure are going away.
As fewer people use the PSTN network, the costs per customer skyrocket. This cost must either be passed on to the customer or it becomes an unsustainable burden for the telecom, and/or hurts investment in the digital infrastructure. E.g, your access to fiber service might be delayed because of having to maintain the PSTN network.
There are legitimate concerns over rural customers who are not serviced by any other telecom method. However cellular coverage is still improving. Depending on how SpaceX’s StarLink satellites work out, by the early 2020s nearly everyone on earth might have access to symmetrical low-latency gigabit service for a fairly low fee: Starlink - Wikipedia
Final Countdown to PSTN Sunset: Remote Patient Monitoring – eDevice – Mérignac, France
British Telecom goal of switching all customers to IP telephony by 2025: BT pushes ahead with plans to switch off telephone network • The Register
Global phaseout of PSTN by 2030: Customer Experience Assurance Blog — Cyara
Ballooning costs of maintaining PSTN network: The Future of Plain Old Telephone Service: Hang Up or Pay Up | Future of Sourcing
The phase-out of good old copper telephony contrasts with attempts at phasing out rotary dialing years ago.
In our state, the PUC required the phone companies to charge more per month for touch tone dialing, despite that having become cheaper than maintaining rotary. So many people kept their rotary phones to avoid the extra fee.
The local Bell went to the PUC: Hey, let’s ditch rotary entirely. Drop the fee. And we’ll give every customer with a rotary phone a free touch tone phone paid for by the savings. PUC: Nope. Grandma wouldn’t like that and we love keeping grandma happy.
And that’s nothing compared to replacing the old land lines. Lots of unhappy grandmas in the future.
“Phasing out” when mostly what they’re doing is stop maintaining it and let it decay is just a euphemism.
Well, to close the loop on this thread, I made a decision. I did indeed transfer my “landline” number to Comcast, bundled with my cable TV and internet. It is saving me some money, and most importantly, saving me some government fees and taxes. Based on all the advice in this thread (thank you all very much!) I’ve decided that no, cable “landline” is not as good as a real landline, but it is most likely good enough for the likes of me.
Oh, and yes, when I made the switch, they did transfer me to a special automated service to make sure my actual physical street address was linked to my phone number. Which was my primary worry in the first place.
Joey P is correct. You can drop your phone service and will still be able to call 911 from the phone. This is also true with disconnected cell phones. With your landline, we will see your address. We can’t call you back, but as long as you stay on the line, we can talk to you. If you can’t talk for whatever reason, we will still know your address.
Cell phones, whether disconnected or not, do not give us your address. We get a latitude and longitude that we can respond to, which isn’t always correct. Right now, the accuracy can be anywhere between 10 meters and 1000 meters. If you live in an urban area, even a 10 meter accuracy could place you in several different houses, all of which would have to be checked until we find you.