Landline Telephones

This thread is from 2022. Presumably fewer DLers have them now.

I still have my longtime land line number on Ooma. which requires an internet connection. But it also rings through an app on my cell, so I'm not totally reliant on power being on at home.

My mom has a "landline" through Spectrum, and, because it's modem-based, it's completely worthless when the power (or Spectrum service) is out.

Her brain can't process that we can port her number to a cheap cell phone and she can save herself (wasted) money.

Technically a land line is switched through a phone company central office, not cable or Internet. Almost extinct.

I think cable will go away fairly soon, too.

Do you dial it with a pencil?

You can buy a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) for less than $100. And R5, yes, I agree with that.

i use ooma 99 bucks free for life you can pay another 100 or so for additonal features. Plugs into router then into phone lines. I can take it anywhere and my number is my number,.

No landline, just my cell. Hell the only people I even still talk to on the phone instead of texting are my elderly relatives.

I only know one person who still has a landline phone. She's in her 60s. She also still balances her checkbook despite that not having been a thing for...decades?

My friend has it. He has everything, even cable but he's not even there to use anything coz he works all the time

Thread from last year on the Official Definition of “Landline”.

Also from last year.

quote] Landline users remain proudly ‘old-fashioned’ in the digital age

[quote] Do your parents still have a landline with your old phone number?

[quote] Ooma

Ooba. Ooba.

I have one but it's VOIP through AT&T.

I don't carry a cell phone, just a prepaid burner that I keep in my car's glove compartment for an emergency.

However my iPad mini has cellular and I carry it with when I leave the house. I don't talk on it though, just text and surf.

I keep it for the prestige of a 212 area code. I never really think about it.

Most offices don't even have landlines anymore, everything is Microsoft Teams.

My elderly aunt and uncle not only still have a landline, but they still have their 1970s banana yellow rotary wall phone in their kitchen, with the cord that's 10,000 feet long. They have cordless phones in other rooms of the house. I love the wall phone, it's so retro and they've said they'll never get rid of it.

R18, do they lease their phone from Ma Bell?

I was thinking about this yesterday. How many people under 50 have one?

r20 none that I know.

I’m concerned about my fax line. What will I do if that goes down? How can I write to people and get it there same day? The Postal Service is too slow.

Funny, I was just looking into this the other night to see if it still existed. I worked for AT&T in the 90s - funny how quickly it all changed.

I do. Two. NYC and East Hampton, NY. Both on answering machines. When electric power goes out, of course answering machine does not work/record, but landlines always work in storms, snow, rain, drought, etc. What I like best is on my own time I can check either machine no matter where I am, and di bit gave to carry a cell phone all the time. I've noticed most of my pals are unable to not answer a phone if it rings when they are earring or in movies, or even in a car.

We’ve kept them. No excuse except, as above, we’ve had a memorable landline number forever. Everyone who knew it is dead by now: it’s mostly junk calls. But my cellphone number is even more notable, so it’s not a very good excuse. Just lazy, I guess.

[quote] but landlines always work in storms, snow, rain, drought, etc.

So do cellphones.

You do know that landlines are now on the same networks as cellphones, right? They're not on the old phone company lines.

R26 That's one thing I wondered - I don't think that those old phone lines are being maintained. I wonder whether they were just decommissioned, removed, etc.

I don't know if we'll ever hear "all circuits are busy now" ever again.

Landlines are on cable lines and satellite now.

U type old

[quote] they are earring or in movies

And caftans!

R10 In her 60s! So ancient!

I just have my memories of Days of the Landline . Like when you damaged your phone, needed a new one, and had to actually call a phone company ( the horror), and convince them the phone was damaged due to normal wear and tear and was not intentional .

Days of before call waiting when you had to ask the OPERATOR to make an emergency breakthrough

Does this resonate with any offer elders. ?

R22 Is a Republican senator, remember that most of them have fax numbers and you can jam their machines

Yes, R32. Also long distance was expensive. My father complained often about the long distance bill from my mother in Brooklyn spending a small fortune talking with her sister in Farmingdale. If we visited them or vice versa the one who had headed home would call the other and ring twice when they got home so the other knew they had gotten home safely. I forgot once and picked up the phone. It caused a minor drama.

You should spend a few hundred on a satellite phone if your main concern is an emergency, OP. Any disaster that takes out the cell towers is also going to disable your landline.

Operator? Get me HIllcrest 459.

My parents have one. They have to pay two monthly bills. One bill is for local service. Then another bill is for long distance service.

I'd like to have one. Sorry I ever gave it up.

The FCC stopped requiring POTS lines having to be maintained as of August 2, 2022. Some are still functional, but they are disappearing. Most so-called "landlines" people have now are overpriced VoIP lines from places like Spectrum and AT&T. The line is usually connected to the modem. There are much cheaper VoIP services you can use. Generally, you purchase a telephone VoIP adapter (about $40) that you plug into your router. I use VoIP.ms which is a Canadian company. I ported my number so I still have the same number. It costs $0.85/month. I set up a "virtual assistant" that requires any caller not on my contact list to press a number to complete the call. I now ger ZERO robocalls!

Why would anyone have a landline (real or so called)?

Because they have lived to long to know that there is almost certainly no need?

Because they overestimate the utility of one (see R35) in a disaster?

Because what else would you put atop your gossip bench in the stair hall?

Who can help me program my VCR?

I, myself, do not.

I do. Both of my cars have CD players and I NEVER use an automated bank teller. I go to the bank and use a teller to deposit checks and to withdraw cash.

I pay ALL of my bills by sending check thru the mail- so there.

I do, wouldn't think of dropping them. One in city, one in country. I do not have a cell phone, do use a home desktop . Sometimes for WiFi I carry a small iPhone with no SIM card. Never wanted the bother of a phone in hand bothering me all the time.

[quote]I don't think that those old phone lines are being maintained. I wonder whether they were just decommissioned, removed, etc.

I know that where I am, the old copper lines have been replaced with fiber-optic lines capable of carrying vast amounts of data for phone and internet services. I don't know about remote rural areas...are there still wires strung across telephone polls? I haven't seen that in some time.

Where may I get this newfangled miracle? Bustling Walnut Grove has need of them.

Me! I pay $7 or $8 a month for it. Fibre Optic.

[quote]I keep it for the prestige of a 212 area code.

r17 604 here!

Not a fan.

I no longer find a need for them.

I had no idea that most landlines were VOIP now. So what's happening to all that old-school infrastructure we spent decades building? I guess all the lines to homes are used by ISPs now, but what about all the switching stations and intercontinental cables and satellites? All left to rot, I suppose. Never thought about it before now. I know it's just a byproduct of progress, but it gives me a melancholy feeling to think of it all fading away.

No. I have had a true land line phone since the last century.

What's the point of it unless, perhaps, one lived in a very remote location and wanted a connection to emergency services -- assuming such a connection were still available.

Any land line I've had for ages comes with a package of internet + mobile phones + TV services. The "land line" number assigned doesn't have a physical phone connected to it (and what use would it be if it did? None in an emergency, certainly)

I always worry about my phone getting lost or there’s a fire and I’m not near my phone and can’t get to it. At least a landline is within reach. You also need a landline for faxing which a lot of places still use.

[quote] I do not have a cell phone … Sometimes for WiFi I carry a small iPhone

Oh, dear.

R53 My "landline" and my fax line are both VoIP. The FCC has allowed service providers to discontinue selling and maintaining POTS lines so, depending on where you are, the old style telephone lines simply may not be available.

Still, you usually get roped into a landline to fax regardless with most service providers. A lot of web-based faxing is blocked by businesses.

I have a VOIP phoneline of the landline phone number I've had for 20 years just in case my elderly parents need to use it to get in touch. Otherwise I would switch it off and will when they pass away. It costs $5 per month for unlimited national and mobile/cell calls. I never use it. I forgot about it actually and this thread reminded me of it.

Yup.

[quote]Never wanted the bother of a phone in hand bothering me all the time.

You must be old and retired. You can't work in most jobs these days without a cell phone. And not just so people can reach you, you need an app to log in to your work computer.

Changed our landline from our local phone company (whose rates had risen to more that $70/month) to VoIP with Ooma for about $10./month, a long time ago. For $10./month, the landline is nice to have as an option. We’ve got the spam call filtering cranked up to 11, but I will admit we have to block all unknown calls during election seasons. One year, the week prior to the election, we unplugged it entirely.

I haven't had one in 20 years. Have never missed it.

If only we had, in addition to the polls, a Venn Diagram Generator showing the overlap of Dataloungers and landline holdouts (and those who think VOIP will save them in the great diaster.)

Just dial 10 10 221 321 35 then star, the pound sign then 10 10 3322111111-1. Just .09 cents a minute!

I keep my emergency sake in the small cupboard above my fridge.

I don't have one but they are useful during natural disaster type situations.

[quote]showing the overlap of Dataloungers and landline holdouts (and those who think VOIP will save them in the great diaster.)

***dials 911 with a pencil***

"Help me! My house is being flooded, and my Follies poster is already ruined! My Barbra Streisand CDs are about to be swept away!"

Verizon in NYC doesn't bother to maintain old lines. Mine died, the guy said not to worry, went to truck and set in a small screen thing with a small antenna that runs on electric and works.

R65 - how? Cell phones connect to actual physical lines, you know that, right? If a disaster compromises phone lines - it's not just cell phones going out.

[quote]I keep it for the prestige of a 212 area code.

Ditto, R17.

r68 that and the POTS lines are going away. During 9/11 Cisco was able to provide IP phones to the emergency response and the Mayor's office, IP phones.

2004: 90% of Americans had landlines

2022: 29% of Americans had landlines

2024: 23%

The FCC is phasing out the old requirement for phone service providers to continue landline service.

Once the Boomers are gone, so are landlines. Also, print media i.e. magazines and newspapers.

I still have a vcr- so there

( I rarely use it however)

Your decades old vcr would probably destroy any fragile videotape you inserted into it, R73. You own a relic, not a vcr.

I still have a VCR/DVD player that will transfer VCR tapes to DVD. One obsolete medium to another! It's not connected to anything and probably never will be. I'll eventually dispose of it as electronic waste.

r75 Ship it to me! I have several DVDs and a few VHS tapes. My old 1996 VCR ate my copy of Ruthless People then gave up the ghost. 😮‍💨