Good ole days of back then modern comms. My freight carrier issued these out to cargo movers, i had my own good old fashion vibrate/beeper Pager that scrolled a telephone number or showed a static one which required us to use a landline to call in to receive our freight pick up location address & destination. Anymore all one needs do is Dick Tracy it with a wristwatch or mobile handset.
I still love my landline phone. I hate even the thought of being tied to a cell phone 24/7. I looked into VoIP and I could save a whole $3/month if I switched. Not worth it since a single outage would take out my cable TV, Internet and phone. I have a home phone system that supports Bluetooth to link with my cell phone. That is nice as it lets me use any of 5 extensions in the house while my cell sits on its charger. But the voice quality does not compare to land line connections - though that is due in part to the caller being on a cell too. Landlines will not go away any time soon as companies depend on them. But I can see a time when new housing developments don't support landline phone service.
I haven't had a landline in 10 years. Nobody called it but spammers and charities looking for donations. The thing I don't like about VoIP system is the ease with which you can spoof a different number than the one you are calling from. Hey look, it's a call from my local exchange. No wait, it's a telemarketer from India.
My resident state has a do-not-call-list law but frankly ad and spam snoops can slip around it too if they want. I been off telephone pole wire telephone for years too but i do miss it. The call quality was infinitely better than wireless mobile handsets and if there was interruption it was easily traced to the break point then swiftly restored
Yeah, charities don't have to honor the list and criminals don't care. It gets hard to report them when they are spoofing your neighbor's phone number.
My phone service has a neat feature included in my plan. I program in up to 25 numbers. Callers from those numbers come straight through. Everyone else gets interrupted by a recording. I forget exactly what it says, but mentions "security screening". It basically is stall tactic because at that point, most automated robo calls will automatically hang up. And most human telemarketers will too - without listening to the message which says they can press 1 to get through, or just hang on for a few seconds. It is surprising how effective that feature is. So now, if a call does come through, I can quickly see with Caller ID if friend or foe. And if foe, I can add them to a block list.
I'm actually surprised, because over here in Holland they have made landline phones (PSTN/ISDN) very expensive for home users, in order to force you to switch to VoIP. What I don't like about VoIP is that it requires you to connect the phone to a modem, how dumb is this? I mean all of my phone sockets in my home are now rendered useless. This sytem used to work just fine, in fact it had an uptime of just about 100%. But if you are having problems with the modem or the internet doesn't work, you can forget about your phone connection too.
It is not cheap here. I have no clue how much it costs to have new service brought into a home. I am sure that is a lot. But my house already had a drop and connected to the service when I bought the house back in 1989. VoIP did not come about until the mid 90s. And we didn't have cell service in my area back then either. If I didn't already have it and this same phone number for over 30 years, I am not sure I would get it anew. And like I said, above, it is only a few $$$ more each month compared to the VoIP offered by my Internet provider. I could save some money if I didn't have caller ID, unlimited long-distance, call waiting, and other features. But I like those extras. And I really like having a redundant means of communications that doesn't rely on my Internet connection, power in my house, or a battery. Note my primary landline phone gets its power from the DCO (dial central office). So I still have phone access even during an extended power outage. And in my case, while my power and Internet enter the house via drops off a pole, my landline service comes via buried cable. So I don't even have to worry about a downed tree branch taking out my home phone. It is not dumb. It is just the way it is. VoIP by definition works over the Internet. Internet to the home requires a service through a modem. Therefore, VoIP requires a modem. It is the same thing with cell phone service. To make and receive calls, you need a service. The difference is, cell is wireless so instead of modem, you need a tower nearby. They are unused - not useless. There are ways to connect your VoIP service to your home wiring. See distribute voip over home phone wiring.
It costs about €300 a year over here in Holland, so no wonder that most home users have cancelled it. A lot of home alarm systems also don't need a PSTN/ISDN connection anymore. According to rumors, Dutch ISP's will soon pull the plug on PSTN/ISDN landlines, at least for home users. Yes of course, but I'm just a bit frustrated because I prefer the PSTN landline system. But ISP's keep saying that it's quite costly to maintain these landlines, apparently VOIP is cheaper. Cool, will check it out. I always wished that the fiber optics modem could somehow send the phone and TV signal via the coax/copper wires that are now unused in many homes. I'm not exactly a fan of VOIP and IPTV.
I wish it only cost €300 here. €25 ($26.70) per month is cheap! It's not really about being cheaper. From their standpoint, it is maintaining two separate wired networks when one would serve the needs of the majority of users. No doubt, the landline network is likely decades older - so in that respect, requires more maintenance simply due to age. But the main issue is double the work but not double the revenue.
It depends on how you look at. VOIP only costs about €2,50 a month. Internet + TV costs about €60 a month plus perhaps Netflix and Prime Video which ads another €15 a month. So for me it wasn't worth it, but my mom still uses a landline because see doesn't like DECT phones, she tries to limit radiation. Yes, I guess this makes sense.
Well, sure. It is all relative. That said, no way are you going to find VoIP here in the state for only €2,50 a month. The cheapest I have found is $10 (€9.36). And of course, that is on top of your Internet service. Ummm, that doesn't make any sense. Landline and DECT are totally separate. DECT simply allows us to use a cordless phone with our landline service. Nothing says we have to use a cordless phone. We can put wired phones throughout the house. But then of course, you cannot walk around the house while talking on the phone. But you never have to worry about "Low battery" warnings either.
Our cordless landline phones and Internet are entirely on fiber optics since two years ago. Fiber comes right into our home and into a Nokia optical network terminal (ONT), which has a POTS output for the phones and data outputs to a wireless/wired modem for the Internet. Where I work we had to have all of our 4 wire leased copper circuits transferred to fiber or VoIP/IP by 2006, since by that time the Telcos no longer supported the old 4W circuits.
Yes, I think I read something about Sweden or Spain too. But here is the article about GB, I personally think it's bonkers to kill such a great technology, I think the government should step in to protect cable TV based on coax and phone systems based on PSTN/ISDN. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/landline-phone-network-death
Yes, over here in Holland they don't charge that much for VOIP, it's sold as a cheap add on. And if you pay about €15 extra, you can even make as many domestic calls that you want, to both fixed and mobile phones. So that's why I was surprised to read that it would make barely any difference for you, so there is a clear difference between the US in Holland. Yes I know, but if you switch to VOIP, you will have no choice but to use wireless DECT phones. I couldn't find any corded phones that can connect to a modem. And even if I could, she would still need multiple of them for the living room and bedroom, so it would become unhandy.
Yes, I remember we discussed this about a year ago, and this is exactly what I would want to see in Holland too. Because this allows you to simply plugin your TV and phones directly into the wall sockets, without any direct connection to the modem, I assume? Because currently, as soon as you switch to VOIP and IPTV, all of your wall sockets are rendered useless, this is dumb as hell.
You have it backwards. The problem is not about finding a wired phone. Offices and businesses use wired phones all the time. The problem is finding a VoIP modem that supports corded phones. You are suggesting none do - that they are all wireless only. That may be where you live and if true, that is ONLY because of restrictions imposed on you by your ISP local regulators. Because for sure, the technology, capability, and devices are out there to use a corded phone with VoIP. And I already showed how to do it via that link in my post #9 above (which you quoted). As far the need for multiple extensions - that is only because we are spoiled. Back in the day, homes only had one phone - and people survived just fine. You are going around in circles. This is not true. You just refuse to accept it - again even after quoting the link that shows it. I'm moving on. Have a good day.
That's right, no need for us to change to a VoIP-compatible phone. There is still 48 VDC on the Tip&Ring pair for the landline phones, just like in the old days, but of course that is now provided by the Nokia ONT, and not directly from a copper pair that the Telco used to provide.
What I'm saying is that there are indeed no ''old skool'' corded phones that are based on VOIP available for the consumer market. So that's why over here you have no choice but to switch to wireless DECT phones. And I don't see how modems are the problem since they all have the same VOIP ports. Yes, I know it's technically possible to distribute VOIP over existing wires, but in practice nobody will actually do this since DECT phones work just fine, so it's too much of a hassle. So in many homes over here in Holland you now have unused wall sockets and wiring that were used to connect phones and TV's directly to the signal, that's all I'm saying. Cool, over here in Holland this system isn't being installed in newly build homes, it's probably too expensive. And what about TV, are you using IPTV or coax based cable TV?
We don't have a TV connection, per say. If we want to watch streaming content such as Netflix (which I think I might cancel because of their upcoming sharing login restrictions and new subscription plans) or TSN (The Sports Network) on the big screen, we just plug our laptop into the TV's HDTV connection and watch it that way.
I can understand cancelling if you don't like any of their new subscription plans, but it makes no sense to me to cancel due to their new sharing restrictions - which clearly, people (not accusing you) were abusing big time. It should be noted that sharing with others who didn't live in the same household was always against the terms of service. But it was "tolerated" in the beginning when it was shared with kids who were off to college for example - but still dependents of the primary account owner. But it got out of hand. Folks started sharing with their independent, adult family members - even those who lived in different states and countries. Then sharing began being extended even further to friends and neighbors, and friends of friends, etc. This is, in effect, "theft of services" and is essentially the same as a neighbor tapping into a TV cable to watch cable in their house - without paying. This is nothing new either. Sam's Club and Costco have been restricted sharing (or try to anyway) with others not in the same household for decades. Netflix's problem is, they tolerated sharing at first. They never should have right from the start because nobody likes having something they enjoyed previously for free, taken away. Even if they never should have had it for free in the first place. I have a Bluetooth connection between my laptop and my TV. So I can stream to my laptop, then send that to the TV. It works surprisingly well.
