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Are traditional hardwired phone lines in homes becoming obsolete?

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#41 ·
I own voip hardphones already, nothing wrong with having a voip phone in the house, I just need to find a provider hence just require the service then I can call them, they can call me, the kids can order a pizza if theyre hungry, etc. people make it seem like landlines are bad? whats so bad about it? if the price is good and it helps keep in touch, or useful during an emergency then why the heck not?
 
#43 ·
My home phone is $10/mo with call display and built-in answering machine.
Call display also shows on the t.v.

I have free Fongo on the cell that I can use over WiFi as backup. They remind me every 3 months to use it or lose it. So I make a call. I've had it for a few years. I paid $6 to replace the ads for a bar with icons on it.
 
#44 ·
My kids are old enough to stay home alone now, however they are not ready to properly use a mobile phone and not fight over it. Because of this, I set up a very affordable low cost VoIP Home Phone in my house and use a traditional Telephone set plugged in to it. I have printed out a sheet of paper with all the important numbers of immediate family, our phones and our work numbers as well as a emergency numbers. Its inexpensive, the provider charges $4.95 per month,, and it's a very small price to pay for their safety and ability to connect with us in the event of something urgent or an emergency.

Thanks
 
Discussion starter · #45 ·
I don’t buy that POTS is on its deathbed, at least not completely. Maybe in the technical NPC sense, but there will always be replacements like VOIP. Using your mobile phone as a replacement is not fo me.

The claim from another member that Rogers employees must rely on mobile devices seems hard to believe, but if it’s coming from Rogers, it is plausible.

Companies like Ooma seem questionable. They mislead consumers and business owners with mandatory “regulatory” fees, which are actually their own charges that they increase regularly. Ooma also has an old class action lawsuit pending from years ago. Fongo has been receiving a lot of negative feedback recently, and since it is a private company, its long-term solvency is uncertain. The same can be said about other "unknown" companies. I suppose many don't care if they lose their 30+ year old POTS number.

VoIP.ms seems more business-oriented and penny pinching charging for even spam robocalls. Based on their estimator tool, I would be paying around $20 USD per month.

Again, keeping my POTS number is my primary concern. Staying with Shaw, Rogers, or Telus may be the only way to go as it ensures I do not lose our POTS number.

MagicJack could be a viable option since it is well-known in North America, although it is priced in USD. They're unlike to shutter at a moment's notice like Fongo and the other little known VOIP providers.
 
#48 ·
Start.ca was purchased by Telus in 2023. It looks like Telus is merging the Start.ca and Koodo (also owned by Telus) services and brands. It's too bad since Start.ca offered some unique services and did a lot for London when it was operated independently. It looks like the Start.ca wireless home phone is unavailable on the web site. Telus had a wireless home phone which may still be available. It was a lot cheaper when bundled with other Telus services.
 
#49 ·
Hmm888 said:
I don’t buy that POTS is on its deathbed, at least not completely. Maybe in the technical NPC sense, but there will always be replacements like VOIP. Using your mobile phone as a replacement is not fo me.
Click to expand...
POTS has generally meant basic phone service over a pair of wires back to the central office. That is definitely dying, as the world moves to VoIP in some form. My home service is VoIP over Rogers cable. Also, many people are dropping home phones entirely, relying only on their cell phone.
 
#51 ·
When I was young, we never called it POTS, we actually referred to it as PSTN. Public Switched Telephone Network. In realty, it is PSTN that is dying, Home phone can continue to exist over VoIP.
 
#52 ·
When I was a kid, we called it the phone. I didn't start using PSTN until I started working in telecom and POTS only after there was a choice in service.
 
#53 ·
That's pretty cool. I did lots of learning about phones and the telecom industry for years before I got a job in that field/industry.
 
#54 ·
PSTN could apply to VoIP, it's still switched but it's done electronically instead of with hard wired relays. POTS refers to the last mile connection, a twisted pair of copper wires. So modern phone services delivered by fibre, coaxial cable or wireless using packet switching networks can still be PSTN but they are definitely not POTS.
 
#55 ·
Prior to VoIP, phone calls were circuit switched. That is you had a dedicated connection for the duration of the call. That is not the case with VoIP, where individual packets are forwarded by routers, potentially over different routes.
 
#56 ·
That's why long distance was so expensive originally. It needed a dedicated connection using pairs of wires and amplifiers that could extend for thousands of miles. These days, it's done using an almost insignificant number of packets on a fibre optic cable that is shared with thousands of other virtual connections. The cost is trivial.
 
#57 ·
Growing up we were not as well off as our neighbours so because of this, we were not big on making long distance calls. We did it sparingly and kept our conversations as short as possible.
When internet based apps such as Skype started becoming popular, we started to shift towards using these apps to make international calls. I know things are different now, but we did whatever we could to keep in touch with family and not spend big $$$ on LD.

My VoIP includes US calling, so I am very happy with the price. I would rather make US calls on my VoIP and Save money, instead of paying for US calling on my cell phone plan which might I add, they charge a lot more, plus if my wife wants to make calls on her cell phone then there is more costs. We are definitely not wealthy, so there is nothing wrong with saving a few bucks here and there and working with what you have.
 
#58 ·
You were lucky. I don't recall having a home phone until I was about 10. Calls to extended family would have been thousands of miles at over $5 per minute (equivalent to $50+ per minute today due to inflation.) I don't recall it ever happening. These days it would cost about 5 cents a minute or possibly less with a monthly add-on.
 
#59 ·
ExDilbert said:
That's why long distance was so expensive originally. It needed a dedicated connection using pairs of wires and amplifiers that could extend for thousands of miles.
Click to expand...
Actually, the individual pairs of wires went only as far as the central office. For any significant distance, carrier system, originally analog, later digital, were used. These would carry multiple calls at a time. For example, the analog carriers I used to work with could carry 3 or 12 voice channels over a pair of wires and the 2 could be combined for 15 channels. Later, the digital T1 carrier system was developed, which could carry 24 voice channels over 2 pairs. There were also microwave and satellite systems that didn't use wires at all. They could handle hundreds of channels.
 
#60 ·
I was thinking way back, before multiplexing, microwave links and T1. We are a long way from using multiple single conductors strung along telephone poles between cities. I also included bundles of twisted pairs and considered multiplexing. Either way, it's a lot of infrastructure for not very many phone lines, especially when compared to modern fibre networks. At one place I lived we had Bell's consumer multiplexing, aka a party line, with twelve families on one twisted pair back to the CO. That was in the late 1960s. We had strict instructions to not tie up the phone with long calls. In the 1980s, I subscribed to a Bell data line, probably T1 based, in order to reduce long distance costs. It was pathetic. It cost half as much as a dial up line but was only half as fast. What a scam.
 
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JamesK
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