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Communications

Landlines Are Dying Out (yahoo.com) 142

Posted by msmash from the end-is-nigh dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: The number of landline users has plummeted with the rise of cellphones, and the 19th-century technology's days appear to be numbered. Providers like AT&T are looking to exit the business by transitioning customers to cellphones or home telephone service over broadband connections. But for many of the millions of people still clinging to their copper-based landline telephones, newer alternatives are either unavailable, too expensive, or are unreliable when it matters most: in an emergency.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, only a quarter of adults in the United States still have landlines and only around 5 percent say they mostly or only rely on them. The largest group of people holding onto their landlines are 65 and older. Meanwhile, more than 70 percent of adults are using wireless phones only. The copper lines used for traditional landlines carry electricity over the wires, so as long as a phone is corded or charged it will work during a power outage. Landlines are separate from cellular and broadband networks and are not affected by their outages, making them a necessary backstop in rural areas. Many of those same areas have inadequate cellular or internet coverage.

"In three, four, maybe five years a lot of states are going to say 'Okay, it's permissible to discontinue service if you, the phone company, can demonstrate there's functional alternative service,'" says Rob Frieden, an Academy and Emeritus Professor of Telecommunications and Law at Pennsylvania State University. AT&T recently asked the California Public Utilities Commission to end its obligation to provide landline service in parts of the state. The Federal Communications Commission, which has to approve a request to end service, said it hasn't received one from AT&T.
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Landlines Are Dying Out More

Landlines Are Dying Out

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  • It's aging infrastructure the telcos are desperate to kill off, and they have permission to do so. And they're even being clever about it. Instead of just telling customers "We're dropping these lines," they just keep raising the prices until it's not longer tenable. Around here, a single POTS line will run you as much as $400/month. A digital line is a fraction of that, even with an ATA to convert it for an alarm system.

    • I cancelled my landline around 1998 due to incessant junk calls.

    • New homes aren't even getting POTS demarcs installed. My house was built in 2016 and there isn't an inch of telephone wire in it, and on the entire street of 8 homes, not a single one has landline phone service, or even a possibility of it because the wire doesn't exist in the vault in the street where cable tv sits.

      I actually checked with CenturyLink (the incumbent provider for this zip code) and they said they can't even get me shitty 5mbps DSL because the wire doesn't exist.

    • Around here there is no fiber.
      Cell service only works outdoors.
      AT&T offers 128kbps IDSL only.
      Fortunately there is Comcast cable.
      I use an Ooma VOIP connection, and Panasonic DECT 6.0 which covers the whole property inside and out .
      Cell phones can use Wi-Fi calling, but it is less reliable.

    • Correct. But you forgot to mention that they get you another way: poor maintenance of the copper lines. By the time I gave up my landline, not only was it more expensive than 3 cell phone lines, but the reliability was nowhere near 99.999% or so that the Bell System had.

  • Well... not really (Score:5, Informative)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Monday March 25, 2024 @03:36PM (#64343793) Journal

    It would be more accurate to say that POTS technology is being phased out. "Landlines" are simply transitioning from POTS to VOIP. Fewer people have home phones, but they'll always exist, and they're simply being moved to ATA adapters.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 )

      It would be more accurate to say that POTS technology is being phased out. "Landlines" are simply transitioning from POTS to VOIP. Fewer people have home phones, but they'll always exist, and they're simply being moved to ATA adapters.

      Uh huh. And an EV car is JUST like any other ICE car. Right up until the electricity goes out. Or the weather gets too cold to charge EV batteries easily. Or too hot to use them. Or when the battery dies and you can’t get a bank to finance another car worth of loan for just the new battery.

      When Shit Happens, you quickly realize that an ATA adapter and VoIP service may “always” exist, but are hardly the same thing. Kind of like EV cars.

  • I had one five years ago (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kobun ( 668169 ) on Monday March 25, 2024 @03:39PM (#64343803)
    Despite putting my number on every Do Not Call list that I could find, the landline phone would ring at least a dozen times a day at all hours with spam, scams, and political bullshit. They are dying in part because the FCC has been either asleep or looking the other way.
    • There is only one do not call list, the national one. Any other is a honeypot to collect working numbers... Also nomorobo works. My fiber landline has only received four unsolicited or unknown number calls in the past two months - something is finally happening at the FCC.

    • Despite putting my number on every Do Not Call list that I could find, the landline phone would ring at least a dozen times a day at all hours with spam, scams, and political bullshit. They are dying in part because the FCC has been either asleep or looking the other way.

      Well, that’s certainly a kind way of saying the FCC has been profiting off this. Who do you think created the “Do Not” Call list in order to sell?

  • Many countries have got rid of POTS phone lines and replaced them with phones that go through your router.

    • In the case of the UK it's all VOIP behind the scene and has been for years, the street cabs were that last leg and they would convert the copper lines still in place onto the VOIP backbone.

      In many areas users have been moved fully onto VOIP via the router, thus the boxen on the street can be totally VOIP. However, all of that was put on hold as the government was not happy that Openreach were not disconnecting vulnerable people simply because they could.

  • Landline vs. cell phone (Score:4, Funny)

    by maiden_taiwan ( 516943 ) on Monday March 25, 2024 @03:45PM (#64343827)

    Answer: Are you there? Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?
    Question: What words do you never hear on a landline?*

    (* Unless the landline has received a call from a cell phone.)

    • Answer: Are you there? Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?
      Question: What words do you never hear on a landline?*

      (* Unless the landline has received a call from a cell phone.)

      Actually yes I've heard that on landlines too. Even POTS calls can be dropped and if you've ever talked next to someone who lived near a radio tower you get plenty of interreference there too.

      99% of the time when you are asking someone if you can hear them it's not their cell phone, it's their crappy Bluetooth earbuds showing off just how good cheap Chinese electronics can be.

    • Sorry to dispute that assertion, but the landline not working is why I got a cell phone. The boobs in charge couldn't, or more likely wouldn't fix it.

      And fiber isn't fail safe either. The fiber optic hub at the corner is powered by the power line. The hub has its very own meter. So when the power goes out you can't use the fiber system to notify the power company. Putting my switch on a UPS would only be useful to allow my laptop to link to my tablet, in other words, not useful.

      The reverse is true too. If

    • Or:

      Person A: Hello?
      Person B: ...

      Person A: Hello?
      Person B: ...

      Person A: Can you hear me?
      Person B: Hello

      Person A: A you can hear me now?
      Person B: Hello

      Person A: What was it you wanted me to get from the shop?
      Person B: Yes

      Person A: What?
      Person B: I certainly can.

      Person A: Er?
      Person B: Milk and eggs, oh and bread and but make sure they are the blue ones.

      Person A: I have no idea whats going on.
      Person B: Huh?

      Person A: I didnt make that out.
      Person B: What do you mean whats going on? just the blue ones.

      Person A:

  • Landlines haven't really been a thing here for the last ten years. they started dying about 15+ years ago already. They have been replaced either by mobile phones or by fiber networks.
    • I specifically recall the year 2000 as the turning point in the Midwestern US. That's when it became cheaper to get a new cell phone versus getting a new landline. People didn't actively remove landlines then, but anytime someone moved they typically became cell phone only.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by evanh ( 627108 )

      All bets the copper is not gone though. The copper will still be maintained, even if not in use, for anyone that wants the assurance of reliable emergency service.

      That's what's happened here in New Zealand. We too went fully fibre many years ago.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Misagon ( 1135 )

      You are misrepresenting the situation by calling it "not a thing", indicating that the decline would be demand-driven.
      It is not. The Swedish telephone operators are actively discontinuing landlines where they can, and pricing it to make it near-unaffordable in areas where it is still common, so as to push consumers and businesses to use the more profitable cell networks instead.

  • In the UK most broadband providers work over DSL (ADSL, VDSL, etc) and require you to purchase a monthly landline package as a requirement to have broadband.

  • Bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Monday March 25, 2024 @03:59PM (#64343871)

    At least in my area, 10 minutes into a power outage we lose cellphone and cable internet. There is insufficient/no battery backup for the whole chain of devices that are needed for proper functionality.

    It might be time for copper landlines to disappear, but it is also time that backup power be taken seriously for what are now critical systems.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by erice ( 13380 )

      At least in my area, 10 minutes into a power outage we lose cellphone and cable internet. There is insufficient/no battery backup for the whole chain of devices that are needed for proper functionality.

      The thing is, though, that is totally unnecessary. It is far easier to have robust power for the towers than robust power for the CO, all the remote platforms, repeaters, and robust wiring to all the customers.

      It might be time for copper landlines to disappear, but it is also time that backup power be taken seriously for what are now critical systems.

      It is well past time for redundant power to be taken seriously for cell towers.

      • Redundant power for 5G microcells is a challenge. The package might have a draw of around 500W, so you likely need at least 5kWh of battery backup, ideally 3x that. If you mount near the ground they get stolen, but to put it up the pole you have an extra 50-150kg of mass which can be unwieldy.

        Yes, it needs to be done, badly, but people steal the batteries from the emergency response sirens here! You need a much more robust solution

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      In my rural area, cell sucks in terms of very weak and nothing (not even SOS). Power goes out, bye bye cable services including phone. Even the cable company warned that power outages will result no services. :(

  • The irony that this tidbit comes our way via Yahoo! was not lost on me.

  • I still have my landline; my phone company is also my ISP and though their convoluted billing system makes it hard to know for sure, I don't think I'm paying very much to have it included with my Internet.

    In my opinion, the quality of the landline continues to be unmatched by cell phones. The audio quality on my cell phone can be extremely variable but my landline remains wonderfully consistent. Another thing: I can sit on hold for several hours on my landline but my cell phone will typically disconnect aft

  • Old News (Score:3)

    by NomDeAlias ( 10449224 ) on Monday March 25, 2024 @04:12PM (#64343911)
    What is going on with Slashdot. Yesterday there is an article about book publishing being disrupted and now landlines? These industries were disrupted decades ago. There is nothing new here did Slashdot editors just wake from a coma?

  • I'm sure that means I will soon not even have shitstream 5Mx1 DSL any more.

  • My copperline company bills itself as a fiber company. Spectrum is the company building out fiber to my area. They have so far stopped at the house upstream. Not bad, actually. Lots of trees, each span is a custom job. They like a 3' radius clearing on top of the 8' power line clearance. There is no "cable" cable, so all is overgrown many times over and only cleared for power lines. Also $ for all that I just said. Seriously speaking, our government dollars at work.

    But I digress, my copperwire company jus

  • Meanwhile Landline *pricing* appears to be firmly stuck in the 1960s, back when the concept of a "Long Distance" call had any relevance.

  • Until a few years ago, when an ice storm pulled the entire bundle of POTS lines off the pole, we still had a copper pair attached to our house. It was nearly $80 month for a dialtone. When I called verizon (not the cell provider, but the entity formerly known as "New England Telephone") and told them they'd need a construction crew, they sent a tech to our house who said "I'll have to see about sending a construction crew." He said it in a tone that made me think that no crew would be forthcoming; there are

  • War? (Score:2)

    by kackle ( 910159 )
    I have a mild fear that we're giving up something that could be an important back-up, say during war time. Maybe I'm mistaken. The landlines I know of have mostly been converted to cable/VOIP landlines, but these don't work during a power failure. Oops.

    Cellular towers are easily seen/discovered from above (and perhaps their users). I can see where cell phone towers could be jammed by roving trucks (satellites?) that would be difficult to track down. I can see where a good hack could propagate thro

  • Where I live, if you don't already have POTS available in your neighborhood, you probably never will.

    Even in existing neighborhoods, you may be out of luck if you don't already have a "land line."

    Also, long ago (in the DSL era), the phone companies started migrating "plain old telephone service lines with full power-back-to-the-switch" to "fiber to the neighborhood, battery-backup-in-the-neighborhood to your home over copper." This means if the neighborhood loses power, your phones may will go out several

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by m2pc ( 546641 )

      A couple years ago we moved and tied to "port" our existing landline to the new address. Seemed like an easy move, just like all our other utilities, since there was copper at the new address. We were wrong.

      After 8+ months of going back-and-forth with AT&T, and given every excuse from "the work crew had to stop digging because of the rain" to "one of your neighbors isn't allowing the crew to work in their yard", we were told that the lines were too old (installed in the 1970's) to be repaired to the p

  • Whole of my area were moved to fibre to the premises last year as part of the BT Openreach upgrades to do away with POTS and move everything to VoIP I now have a 140Mb fibre that can go a lot higher instead of crappy 4Mb ADSL that dropped when it rained
  • A true phone line is 100% analog and passes down enough voltage to power a phone, sometimes even during a power outage
    You may say "Ha, I still have one!" Yeah, trace it and oops, it goes to a date modem. It's a Skype/Discord/Teams call with extra steps, being sent over internet servers.
    You may even say "Ha, I paid more for a true analog line for our legacy dialing devices at my work!" - so did we. It goes to a slightly more clever modem that still sends it down coax. I have no idea how it works but the "r

  • At least in the Scandinavian countries I'd say they've been replaced by "fiber landlines" instead.

    4-5G is still not reliable enough for gaming, and in the big crowded cities even regular use can still be an issue, but Fiber is always reliable, way better than the old dangling landlines were you could be pretty sure to lose your internet connection during a storm.

    I'd say RIP landlines, you were great for 100+ years, but it's time to let go. Fiber is technically a landline, but we use them slightly differentl

  • Many people who think they still have a landline really have a cell adapter attached to their house. If their last service "repair" resulted in them having an electrical adapter plugged in with a wire going through the wall of their house ... then their land line only goes as far as the exterior of their house. AT&T has been making these sorts of "repairs" for over a decade now. I'm sure the other providers are doing it to.

    • Base station cellular is a good idea in rural areas. The antenna is outside, and since it is far away from you it can transmit at higher power.

      My first cell phone had a very marginal signal and I had to get an amplifier and outdoor directional antenna. Then they upgraded to 4G, but the new antenna was on the other side of the hill. So I had to change companies to the one that had a shiny new 4G tower on this side of the hill.

      No there will never be real 5G here. There is no point.

  • With the phone network having its own powered lines and with its switching stations having independent backup power, when I was growing up you always knew the phones would work even if the power went out. Beyond that, you knew where a phone line led.

    Those two qualities are what make that old system so precious to people who remember it, especially as they get older and being able to get 911 to send someone to you immediately seems more and more important.

    That is indeed gone for most people, and they're cli

  • ... to end its obligation to provide landline service

    Is this the same AT&T that can't even keep FirstNet [wikipedia.org] up and running reliably? Can we trust their interpretation of "functional alternative service" when they can't even keep the police departments connected?

  • Especially if it is more expensive and less reliable than boomer technology. Plus my phone is so convenient, it offers me ads based on overheard conversations. CONSUME

  • Disaster backup communications, alarm systems, emergencies in low/no cell service areas, and so forth. Almost no one needs them today, but some people and businesses still do.

    • My phone company says they aren't accepting requests for new installs. I told them my house was built in the 1970's and already has a land line, and I just want to turn the service on. But no. They won't do it.

  • I have a landline. Sort of. But it's not copper. The last mile is fiber that carries my phone and my internet.

    ...laura

  • During the last MAJOR storm in Connecticut (2011 Halloween nor'easter), when more than half of the state lost power for days, we found out that generators were not required on cell phone towers (or cable, or DSL, or fiber).

  • Landlines Are Dying Out

    This is going to work so beautifully in the case of a war. For the adversary, of course.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Because you think that the landline system was somehow massively distributed and uninterruptible, but that cellular, satellite, fibre, radio, etc. aren't?

      If anything it would be even harder in the modern age to take out communications - previous generations had the landline and public radio (transmitting from large, obvious, powerful towers) and that was it.

      Now you can use cellular, satellite systems (Starlink), form wifi mesh networks, use Pringles-cantenna long range wifi networks, use underground fibre,

  • I am one of those affected. I live in a rural village, not far from a national highway, close to a city, and I have no cellphone signal. (*)

    This village has fairly frequent power outages (three or four times a year), so we rely on the landline for emergency calls.

    Our phone provider simply fails to understand the issue, fails to understand that there are pockets like this all over the country. They claim that the solutions they offer are good enough. No, they aren't. And they want to charge money for the

  • Pull my landline out of my cold dead hands...

    I have a mobile, but I keep it clean and cold caller free by using the landline for all business communications. It works quite well, they sell my landline number, and then call and talk to the answerphone while I'm at work :D

    I also use it for emergency account recovery. Google etc, will use the landline and only the landline to send 2FA codes to when I need to regain access to any or my accounts that use 2FA SMS. I like the idea that sure, you can steal my ph

  • You Have to keep landline for internet as it's the ONLY choice for a lot of rural people. Read where Spectrum customer was complaining about paying $80 for 300 Mbps. Try Windstream/Kenetic $110 for 25 or lower Mbps !!! When it works.....
  • The new provider kept our landline running (itâ(TM)s not really a land line anymore, just a tiny bit of bandwidth on top of our broadband). Incoming calls only = free, weekend + evening calls = 4 pound a month, full calls = 8 pounds a month.

    Of course we both have mobile phones. But many people in the UK without mobile phones will be forced to switch soon.
  • Verizon makes you take a wired phone number along with FIOS service, at least around here. But it's VoIP, not traditional landline service; the phone plugs into your fiber modem. And if you get FIOS they convert ALL the landlines in your house to use the fiber, not just the one that gets bundled with the service.

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