New telephones are on their way.

[MineralMan]

My wife and I decided to buy a set of new cordless phones for our land line POTS service. No big deal...lots of great bargains on Amazon for these, so we ordered a set of four...just $59, and the base unit is also an answering machine. But, then, we always keep one phone that doesn't use electricity, and that one was getting kinda funky and sometimes had a hum in it. It's an old princess phone, and it was time to replace it, too.

Off I went to eBay. And there it was. A beige ITT touchtone phone, new in its box and dating back to 1967, when touch-tone phones were pretty new. Brand new old stock. Now, why that was never taken out of its box I have no idea, but there it was and at a great price. So, that one's on its way here, too.

I also have an old oak wall farm phone connected to the POTS line, along with a 1930s candlestick rotary dial phone hooked up as well, but those won't do for times when a guy needs a touch-tone phone. So, what to replace that old Princess phone with? I like talking on the old oak phone. It's on the wall next to the kitchen door at our house, with an old stool in front of it, just like in the 1890s. The candlestick phone sits on a vintage telephone chair with attached table. I use that one occasionally, too, when I call my parents.

POTS lines are still a good thing to maintain. If the power goes out, the phone lines are still often still working, so you can call the electric company to report your outage or 911 to report whatever else is an emergency. I know lots of people have abandoned their POTS line, but I'm not ready to do that, even though we both have cell phones.

Lots of nice new phone equipment out there, if you want to hang onto your POTS line. So, here's a Poll:

Do you still maintain a POTS (Plain old telephone service) landline?

29 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes, I have a POTS landline.
	16 (55%)
	No, I don't have a POTS landline.
	13 (45%)
	Nunnofyerbidness.
	0 (0%)
	I like to vote.
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[MineralMan]

1. I added a POTS poll to this.

[sweetapogee]

5. still have a LL

to monitor our fire/intrusion system.

[MineralMan]

6. Ah...good idea. I don't have one of those systems.

I keep it for 911 capabilities in a major power outage, when even cell phone service is disrupted.

[sweetapogee]

11. I'm a volunteer FF

so I get monitoring by the county 911 at a very low rate. My BIL owns an alarm company and provided the hardware at cost, he and I did the install of course for free. It was a lot of work and when something has to be fixed it is on my dime

[LWolf]

2. Other.

I have one that doesn't work that I'm about to get rid of. Why? Because none of the lines are "live" any more, and I can't afford to repair them.

[Vashta Nerada]

3. I haven't had a landline since 2006, when I got my first cell phone.

[MineralMan]

4. Lots of people seem to have dumped their landline.

I'm betting it has something to do with age. For us old farts, keeping that connection alive seems important, somehow.

[kimbutgar]

7. AT&T is a real jerk about landlines

I have 2 lines at my mother's house. I had added Internet but it was shitty. I eliminated the Internet and AT&T jacked up the rate to $100 a month. My mother is 91 had the line for 57 years she still has family and friends who call her and the second line is for
The caregiver. In my house I have a landline also and with Internet it costsme about $60 a month. AT&T really wants me to give up the landlines. I really want to drop AT&T but they got a monopoly and there u no other option here in San Francisco. Ugh!!

[SeattleVet]

8. Switched over to a VOIP landline (Ooma) a while ago

and love it! Voice quality is the same, and the bill is essentially just the applicable taxes, so our bill runs about $4/month. We did add a 'premium' service for a few $ a month that gives us 2 lines, and a LOT of 'blacklist' functions to block almost all of the telemarketing scammers, and a bunch of other features.

If there is a network outage all calls automatically either redirect to the cellphone or to a message center, so we've never lost a call.

For us, it was worth it for the blacklisting features, alone.

[MineralMan]

9. My wife and I got our first cellphone in 1991.

It was a big old Nokia brick phone. It cost $99 with the contract. We could have gotten a bag phone for free, but opted for the "modern" style phone. Of course, the next year, the Motorola flip phone was the rage, so we bought one of those instead. That old Nokia worked fine, but what a pain to carry.

[Silent3]

10. I have a landline, but it's through my cable company

It can still work when the power is out because there's battery back-up for the cable modem, but it's still not quite as reliable as POTS during a blackout. Between that and our cell phones, however, I'd say we're pretty well covered for emergencies.

The house is wired for a POTS landline, which we used for the first couple of years in this house, but the pricing from the cable company got too good to pass up.

[MineralMan]

13. My parents get their phone service from the cable company, too.

Once a month or so, I can't get through to them, though, due to some outage or glitch. I don't like that much.

[Silent3]

19. Ours is much more reliable than that. n/t

[MineralMan]

21. They live out on a farm, and they lose their cable

way more often that they should. I'm trying to get them to reconnect their land line phone. They're both 89, and I want them to be able to call 911 at any time, no matter what.

[ScreamingMeemie]

12. It would be impossible (with the tech-shield in my roof) to not have a landline.

Radiant barrier sheeting is also a great barrier against cellphone signals and government thought control...

[MineralMan]

16. Yah, that'll protect you against star seed transmissions, too.

Good choice!

[arely staircase]

14. remember how before smartphones the trend in cell phones was to make them tinier and tinier? nt

[MineralMan]

17. There was an old SNL sketch about really tiny cell phones.

I can't remember who was in it, though. I think it was set in a trendy clothing store or something.

[Arugula Latte]

24. In the movie Zoolander, Will Ferrell played a crazy fashionista with a tiny, tiny phone.

[MineralMan]

25. Ah, maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

That makes sense, and would explain the SNL confusion. I'll go look for it.

Ah, he did it on SNL, too:

[MineralMan]

18. I had a very small little stupid flip phone for a while.

I liked it a lot. It fit nicely in a shirt pocket. Now, I have a smart-ass Android phone. It doesn't fit so well.

[northoftheborder]

15. to me, the sound quality is so much better on the old cord phones.

I have the cordless set, but have a cord phone for electric emergency. If I had a bigger house I would definitely plug in at least two of my old phones, but still have a couple of cordless.

[tabbycat31]

20. Haven't had a landline since I moved out of my parents house

I'm also on the road for months on end (I was back home for the first time since July for the holiday) so there's no point.

[MineralMan]

22. I'd miss my antique phones. Really.

One of my favorite things is to watch someone make a call on the old candlestick phone. Seeing someone try to use a separate earpiece and microphone for the first time is funny to watch. The old oak wall phone, though, only gets used if the phone rings as I'm heading out the door.

[Tikki]

23. NO..we kept getting too many solicitor calls on our landline number..

so we just dropped that altogether.


The Tikkis

[pipi_k]

26. Like you

I have cell service and regular landline

All the landline phones are cordless except for one, in case power goes out

[MineralMan]

28. See how smart you are...

[gollygee]

27. No. People who knew us always called our cell phones

so the only calls the landline got were from telemarketers. Tons of telemarketers. Marketers can find other ways to reach me.

[enlightenment]

29. Yes, and no mobile.

I love my old slimline AT&T phone; sound quality can't be beat.

[Chan790]

30. None of the above.

I don't have a telephone at all.

[Posteritatis]

31. I've got one, but don't use it for non-emergency calls anymore

I've got a cellphone too, and about 95% of incoming calls on the landline - I got bored/frustrated enough a few months back to actually work that out over several days - are phishing attempts, so I keep the ringer off at all times now.

[murielm99]

32. I still have a land line.

I live in the country, and I need it. It is handy if the power goes out. We also run our Internet service and Tivo through the land line.

We both have cells, too.

[CFLDem]

33. Land line

What the heck is that?

[Ron Obvious]

34. Does Vonage count?

It's hooked up in such a way that every phone socket in the house works with any old phone. We've had this number for nearly 25 years, so it seemed worth preserving.

It rings about 8 times a day, mostly during dinner. Virtually all telemarketers and surveys. We never answer it.

But it does allow for free phone calls to Europe and that's a good enough reason for keeping it.

[thatgemguy]

35. We aren't connected to the copper

We have VOIP along with our cell phones. We lose our phone service during extended electric outages, and cell service here in the country can be less than reliable at times.

The copper lines here are very old and not in the best shape. Since we've been here the copper service has gone from GTE to Verizon to Frontier, no one wants to put money into upgrading the system.

For those emergencies where we would lose our VOIP and Cell services, I have a two meter Ham rig that would allow us to communicate with the outside world.

[MineralMan]

36. I suppose it will all die out someday.

Here, we have Quest, and they're always trying to sell DSL and other services to their POTS customers. They ran new cable a few years ago, so I guess they're making a try at keeping things going. I'll miss my antique phones when it's all gone, I think. Ringer equivalence be damned, I say. That said, I disconnected the bell on the old oak wall phone. It was screwing with my caller ID. Too bad, too...it was a great sounding, very loud bell. Nice old clapper banging on two brass hemispheres. A guy could hear it anywhere. The phone company in California threatened to cut off my phone service unless I disconnected it, so I took one wire off its terminal. Pity.

[Maeve]

37. Gave up the POTS and bundled with cable

Cell phones for the emergencies without power. Changed mostly for free long distance at the same basic price.
In the old days, we called places, we called 'the So-and-So's house'. Now we call people.

[Piedras]

38. My ATT land line will soon be cut off

I've had a land line for decades. Basic service with taxes is about $32/month. No extras like caller id or long distance for that price.

In a few days it will be switched over to a home wireless system from ATT that is technically a home cell phone system. A transmitter in my neighborhood will transmit to my home wireless box.

It will cost $20/mo plus about $3.00/mo. in taxes. It will have unlimited US long distance plus a long list of calling features (caller id, etc.). I already have the ATT Wireless Home Phone Base plugged in to be ready for the change over. I think it is part of their U verse service.

I was told they will not physically cut my phone line so I could go back using to a land line if I want to.

My ATT sales rep, M, said it will work with 911. The scheduling caller from ATT said I need to let 911 know my location. It is not automatically recognized. We questioned her a length about that. She said ATT legal will not allow her to say 911 calls will know my location. Don't know who to trust about that.

Have had ATT DSL internet for years. Its become unreliable, dropping out multiple times a day. ATT tech support (Hi Otto from India and others) has been helpful with some bugs, but has not solved the unreliability. So in a few days DSL will be cut off too. Will begin U verse internet at double my prior speed for $5/mo more than my DSL plan.

Also signed up for a year of pre-paid cellular service from TracFone for just under $70 including 1500 minutes and a LG480g phone from HSN. The phone enables me call long distance free (no extra charge) to the US and most of the world. It also includes triple minutes for life (of the phone). So, if I buy a refill card for 120 minutes I actually get 360 minutes. Plus some additional free minutes with widely available promo codes. The phone is supposed to be able to connect to wifi and not use up minutes.

Change is in the air.

[SeattleVet]

50. If it works in a similar way to the Ooma system...

you set up your 911 address in software control panel, so the address is 'known' to the 911 system. The Ooma system (and, I assume most VOIP systems) has the advantage that if you are on a trip and bring your phone, you can temporarily change your 911 address while you have the phone system traveling with you.

If we go on a trip, we can take the system with us and plug it in to the Internet and it will work just like at home. People calling don't even know we're out of town, sitting in a hotel room or at a relative's house.

[Piedras]

53. ATT Wireless Home Phone

My new wireless home phone by ATT is (actually) a cell phone service, but not a mobile cell phone (service), if that makes sense. I now have a box in the home that receives cell phone service. My cordless phones base phone is plugged into the ATT wireless box. My other wireless phone work similarly to how they did when I had copper wire service. The big change is my monthly bill is now lower. And I have unlimited USA long distance, caller id (number only...maybe more if the persons name and number is in my directory), voice mail, and some other services I need to learn about.

I am told the cost is $20.00 a month plus about $3.00 a month in taxes and fees. I plan to call our local police dept. (not 911) to ask how 911 will work on my new home cell phone. Previously they "knew" my number and I occasionally received incoming calls warning of something urgently important going on. I will feel better if they "know" my new home cell phone number too.

If I want a portable ATT cell phone that is another service entirely and an additional cost. I did not choose to do so.

Instead I bought a Tracfone. The Tracfone comes with a year of prepaid service and 1500 minutes of calling time which includes USA and international calling. It too has caller id, voice mail, and many other features (i.e. mp3 player, camera, video camera, appointment book) and services.

[Raine]

39. Yes and I also have a couple of cell phones. I mostly use the cell phone but still want to keep

the basic landline for emergency and privacy.

[wandy]

40. Having spent too much of my life with some form of 'communications device'...........

bolted to my hip right up to and including some wacky primitive transmitting computer.
I don't want no stinken cell phone.
Yup I still have good old fashion POTS. I figure it just comes along with the DSL.
One of the old phones is dial and lives in the bedroom along with the 1940's waterfall furniture.
It does come in handy WHEN the power goes out.

[cynatnite]

41. If the power goes out I have a cell phone...

plus I can plug it into the car if needed.

We still have our house phone, but we got rid of our old corded phones ages ago. Don't need them.

I can see why some would enjoy those old vintage phones.

[Kaleva]

49. Towers don't all have emergency back up power.

There's been disasters where people weren't able to use their cell phones because the towers were inoperable for lack of power.

[cynatnite]

52. I'll worry about that when the next apocalypse happens...

Seriously, though. I don't see the point of worrying about this...especially to the degrees that some do. There is always a what-if-this-happens scenario.

[Xithras]

42. I have a landline, but it's forwarded via Google Voice.

I haven't heard my home phone ring in years. If you call it, Google Voice forwards the calls to both my cellphone and my wifes cellphone. Whomever picks it up first gets the call.

We still keep one corded landline phone in the house for the rare outgoing call, but it's mostly unused. Since we don't have any long distance service or other amenities on it, we basically pay $20 a month for 200 minutes of service. Last month I think we used about two minutes of that.

Oh, and the days of keeping a POTS phone around for "emergencies" are coming to an end anyway. At least in the area where I live, AT&T is pushing hard to convert all of the houses to digital, even if you're only using it for normal phone usage. It really improved the call quality to my house, but when the power goes out, the landline goes down too. We have a battery backup on our unit that will keep it running for about 45 minutes, but that's not very helpful in a real emergency situation.

[IDemo]

43. We both retired from the phone company over 10 years ago

Nothing but cell phones since, and not the "smart" kind.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

46. Cell phone only is great until you think your house is on fire and ...

... your cell is somewhere in a seat cushion.

The minute I spent frantically looking for that phone sucked.

The I ran out the back stairs to use the neighbor's phone and encountered her, in tears, frantically saying "my kitchen is on fire! my kitchen is on fire!"

Whew! It wasn't my DIY wiring!

Still no land line.

[Go Vols]

44. Land line for most calls

and a cell if I need it,only 4-5 people have the # to it and I don't know it off the top of my head.

[Warren Stupidity]

45. Internet, cell, pots seemed like overkill and way too much money.

So the landline went. The emergency communications link is the cellphone.

[tech3149]

47. I still have my POTS with a wired phone

Unfortunately my Telco is forcing fiber on us. So by the end of the month I either have fiber or pay extra to keep the copper.

[MicaelS]

48. Better enjoy your POTS while you can..

Because it is on its way out. Here’s AT&T’s $14B plan to kill its copper network and leave rural America behind

AT&T is done with its copper telephone network and copper DSL business, according to its CEO and chairman Randall Stephenson, who spoke Wednesday at an analyst conference in New York City. The company believes that an all-IP network is the path to more profitable future. Given the millions of subscribers that are dependent on the copper telephone lines and copper DSL products, AT&T has offered a $14 billion fringe benefit for those customers and the regulators who will likely balk at the idea of AT&T stopping its investment in copper.

AT&T said it will invest $14 billion in its networks over the next three years, with those dollars going into wireless, business services and the fiber-to-the-node U-verse product. Those three product lines make up 81 percent of AT&T’s revenue and collectively are growing at 6 percent a year. AT&T expects to spend $8 billion for wireless initiatives and $6 billion for wireline initiatives. Total capital spending is expected to be approximately $22 billion for each of the next three years. (Several people are noting that U-verse is copper-based at the last mile, which is true, but I’m referring to the stand-alone DSL product as opposed to U-Verse, which AT&T is clearly investing in.)

Essentially those living in rural areas are screwed when it comes to broadband, with Stephenson saying that he believes that in an IP age, wireline broadband will still be profitable in markets of “reasonable density.” He further went on to say that “The best service is delivered through an IP-only service with a streamlined product set,” which clearly doesn’t include copper telephone lines and DSL.

This news will have huge ramifications for Americans in rural areas as well as those who still rely on their wireline copper-based telephones for burglar alarms, emergencies and fire alarm systems. Competitive local exchange carriers in many regions will also woke up this morning wondering how they will continue to offer their products over AT&T’s copper pipes. Instead AT&T will use its fiber network and LTE to deploy broadband to smaller cities and towns. These decisions also mean the end of network upgrades to the copper network, although it’s not clear how exactly Ma Bell will back away from copper from its network, and it will have to do so with regulatory approvals.

I got rid of POTS when AT&T refused to upgrade their DSL speed beyond 6 megs. Charter offered 35 megs for the same price.

[backscatter712]

51. Nope. I go purely on cell these days.

Got a Nexus 4 smartphone - they are fun toys!

Haven't had the need to fork over money for a landline in years.