I asked AT&T to remove the landline cable run to the side of our house and they did. It was much larger than normal as the house was previously used as a business and had 4-5 phone lines run to it. Obviously its a small detail overall but it feels good to resolve it. I made a call and a week later it was gone.

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what if the next owner wants a landline?

It was probably a 6-pair line. I had one of those run to my previous house in 1996 when I needed 5 lines. 3 voice, 2 data (FAX and continuous dial-up).

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space-time
what if the next owner wants a landline?

Then they can have one added.

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Zoidberg

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space-time
what if the next owner wants a landline?

Then they can have one added.

Or by then the phone company will refuse to install new POTS landline service.

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GGD

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Zoidberg

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space-time
what if the next owner wants a landline?

Then they can have one added.

Or by then the phone company will refuse to install new POTS landline service.

....this.....I would have just left it and just not used the landline.....leaving it, opened options......once it is removed.....it may be more difficult to put back....

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_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

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space-time
what if the next owner wants a landline?

What if they want a telegraph?

Was the previous owner a bookie or did they book "other" personal services?

Copper or not, in many places you can't initiate new POTS service.

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mattkime

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space-time
what if the next owner wants a landline?

What if they want a telegraph?

Yeah; this.

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.....the comparison doesn't really work.....no one uses telegraph but plenty of people still use landline [ mostly older people but still ].......especially businesses....

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_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2020 10:34AM by NewtonMP2100.

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NewtonMP2100
.....the comparison doesn't really work.....no one uses telegraph but plenty of people still use landline [ mostly older people but still ].......especially businesses....

How many of those people are under 50?

....something else to consider.....when power goes out.....landlines usually stay on.....as per recent ISAIA......people had their power out and cell service was disrupted.....

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_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Yeah, that. Last time power was out here for several days after a storm the landlines stayed working where lines were not down. But a number of cell towers ran out of backup power, coverage was getting iffy by the third day in many spots around here.

I'm currently 24 hours into a Comcast outage impacting 51-500 customers, they're my only broadband option. Comcast's status has been saying it will be fixed 4 hours into the future, and when that time comes they add another 4 hours.

I'm currently running my entire home network off of my iPhone feeding my DD-WRT router via USB instead of the cable modem feeding the WAN port. But cell service is poor here (we rely on WiFi calling) and it's only a 4G signal, and we have 5 phones sharing a 15GB/mo data plan so this is chewing into our allocation.

Someday StarLink might become my backup plan for data for those days when Comcast and cell towers have outages due to large power outages from wildfires or earthquakes. But they need to launch more satellites.

....also during major crisis.....for example 9/11.....cell service was basically crippled due to overwhelming demand......landlines would have remained working.....

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_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

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NewtonMP2100
.....the comparison doesn't really work.....no one uses telegraph but plenty of people still use landline [ mostly older people but still ].......especially businesses....

Maybe small businesses. Most larger businesses have switched to VoIP due to cost savings.

POTS is dying. Phone companies aren't buying and haven't bought new POTS equipment in years.

I still have a landline for my small business. I keep thinking about eliminating it, but I would have to have a new sign made for the building, plus my rental agreements and business cards would need to be changed.

I would need to spend a few bucks to save a few bucks.

Back when I bought the business 24 years ago, cell phone service was waaaay too sketchy to solely rely on. It's much better now. so I *could* go cellular only.

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Mr. Lahey: A lot of people, don’t know how to drink. They drink against the grain of the liquor. And when you drink against the grain of the liquor? You lose.

Randy: What the @#$%& are you talking about?

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Rick-o
I still have a landline for my small business. I keep thinking about eliminating it, but I would have to have a new sign made for the building, plus my rental agreements and business cards would need to be changed.

You can port the number but I could understand the reluctance regarding the damage if something went wrong.

I have a landline still, as it's part of my landline/internet service.

Oh, and I have DSL.

So POTS isn't going anywhere for me, until ATT puts a couple of bullets in the back if its skull.

A friend's mom in her mid 80s just got her first cellphone, as the amount of static on her landline made its use unintelligible as well as unbearable.

In addition, the cost of the phone and plan was a fraction of that of her very basic phone plan.

And now she has Caller ID for the first time, and getting it with her landline would have meant a huge jump in her monthly fees.

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

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mattkime

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space-time
what if the next owner wants a landline?

What if they want a telegraph?

This.
You aren’t planning on moving soon, so landlines will be wanted even less as time goes on.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

I regret having discontinued my landline service. We live in a hilly area so have very poor cell coverage so that's no good. I decided to bundle "landline" service with my cable internet service. However, now that the local utility is doing occasional weeklong blackouts during wildfire season, I lose phone service completely and have zero telecommunication ability. POTS is the only thing that works in my neighborhood during blackouts and now they won't reconnect me.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

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davester
I regret having discontinued my landline service. We live in a hilly area so have very poor cell coverage so that's no good. I decided to bundle "landline" service with my cable internet service. However, now that the local utility is doing occasional weeklong blackouts during wildfire season, I lose phone service completely and have zero telecommunication ability. POTS is the only thing that works in my neighborhood during blackouts and now they won't reconnect me.

How about a UPS or small generator to keep your modem up?

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mattkime

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space-time
what if the next owner wants a landline?

What if they want a telegraph?

Pull in some barbed wire, then.

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It is what it is.

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macphanatic

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davester
I regret having discontinued my landline service. We live in a hilly area so have very poor cell coverage so that's no good. I decided to bundle "landline" service with my cable internet service. However, now that the local utility is doing occasional weeklong blackouts during wildfire season, I lose phone service completely and have zero telecommunication ability. POTS is the only thing that works in my neighborhood during blackouts and now they won't reconnect me.

How about a UPS or small generator to keep your modem up?

Don't know about davester, but around here when the power is out, there is also no power to the cable company hardware either. So no signal on the line for the cable modem to work with even if you have a UPS.

When a fully regulated monopoly, the phone companies had to operate with fairly stringent requirements for backup power to the system and POTS would stay up through just about anything short of the lines being cut or brought down and disconnected. The cell services and cable services providing phone service have been under no such requirements, they go out.

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JoeH
Don't know about davester, but around here when the power is out, there is also no power to the cable company hardware either. So no signal on the line for the cable modem to work with even if you have a UPS.

When a fully regulated monopoly, the phone companies had to operate with fairly stringent requirements for backup power to the system and POTS would stay up through just about anything short of the lines being cut or brought down and disconnected. The cell services and cable services providing phone service have been under no such requirements, they go out.

I'm living through this right now. I have power but a large area very close to me lost power around 5:30AM Sunday. About 3 hours later my Comcast went out (TV and Internet) and has been out since. I'm guessing their equipment was in that area and has limited battery backup.

Still waiting for that large area to get power back, the power company just sent a crew out to "assess the situation" after 30 hours. If Comcast comes back at about the same time that area gets it's power back it will pretty much confirm my theory.

Edit: And finally PG&E resolved that power outage, and Comcast came back before Comcast could even update their outage page. So seems pretty certain that my Comcast outage was due to a nearby power outage where some Comcast equipment is located.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2020 05:41PM by GGD.

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JoeH

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macphanatic

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davester
I regret having discontinued my landline service. We live in a hilly area so have very poor cell coverage so that's no good. I decided to bundle "landline" service with my cable internet service. However, now that the local utility is doing occasional weeklong blackouts during wildfire season, I lose phone service completely and have zero telecommunication ability. POTS is the only thing that works in my neighborhood during blackouts and now they won't reconnect me.

How about a UPS or small generator to keep your modem up?

Don't know about davester, but around here when the power is out, there is also no power to the cable company hardware either. So no signal on the line for the cable modem to work with even if you have a UPS.

When a fully regulated monopoly, the phone companies had to operate with fairly stringent requirements for backup power to the system and POTS would stay up through just about anything short of the lines being cut or brought down and disconnected. The cell services and cable services providing phone service have been under no such requirements, they go out.

That is exactly the issue.

---

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

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davester

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JoeH

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macphanatic

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davester
I regret having discontinued my landline service. We live in a hilly area so have very poor cell coverage so that's no good. I decided to bundle "landline" service with my cable internet service. However, now that the local utility is doing occasional weeklong blackouts during wildfire season, I lose phone service completely and have zero telecommunication ability. POTS is the only thing that works in my neighborhood during blackouts and now they won't reconnect me.

How about a UPS or small generator to keep your modem up?

Don't know about davester, but around here when the power is out, there is also no power to the cable company hardware either. So no signal on the line for the cable modem to work with even if you have a UPS.

When a fully regulated monopoly, the phone companies had to operate with fairly stringent requirements for backup power to the system and POTS would stay up through just about anything short of the lines being cut or brought down and disconnected. The cell services and cable services providing phone service have been under no such requirements, they go out.

That is exactly the issue.

You speak of a time when our leaders utilized far more rigor than they do today in looking out for the people's best interests.

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days
La la la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la La la la la la la
la la la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la La la la la la la

---

It is what it is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2020 07:07PM by N-OS X-tasy!.

....Land.......ho....????

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_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

No reliable cell coverage here - unless we want to pay to use Canadian service. We have DSL for a fairly reasonable cost. I still remember when we moved in 20+ years ago we had to have two lines - one for phone and one for dial-up! Good times!

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mattkime

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space-time
what if the next owner wants a landline?

What if they want a telegraph?

they can FAX!

What's this "people's best interest" of which you speak? Doesn't seem to part of current vocabulary.

Wife insists on a landline and we run two rotary phones in the house. The number on the dial of one of them still has the four numbers that were needed when my parents moved to Baraboo, WI in 1964. My wife ignores here iPhone when she wants to make a call, looking up the number in the printed yellow pages and dialing on the rotary phone.

There's NO guarantee your local phone company will keep providing copper lines from the CO direct to your home.

The development where I live was built over 30 years ago and since day one phone service has been provided by an unpowered fiber line from the CO to a box at the entrance, said box translating between fiber & copper lines to all the houses in our development.

That box has a backup battery, & is supposed to get a portable genset in the event of a longer power outage, but force majeure is likely to apply to any event that causes a power outage lasting long enough to drain the battery...unfortunately, it's not like the old days where the only batteries the phone company had to worry about were all at the CO.

Your local phone company can also do the above to your neighborhood, especially as copper lines deteriorate & you & your neighbors complain about static, poor signal, etc.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2020 08:13AM by Bill in NC.

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Don C
Wife insists on a landline and we run two rotary phones in the house.

true rotary? like, not even punch buttons?

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"Success isn't about how much money you make. It is about the difference you make in people's lives."--Michelle Obama

I still have a landline... ish, almost. I still have active copper to my house, but it supplies my U-Verse connection for internet and TV. In my neighborhood we have Fiber To The Node rather than Fiber To The Premises. In other words, fiber goes to a big distributor box in the neighborhood, which then uses the old fashioned copper lines to go to each house.

Now my "landline" is VOIP in the form of an Ooma.