I just want a phone

[calimac]

An article in the Washington Post (behind a paywall, no doubt) says that only 27% of US households still have a landline phone, a percentage that's dropped markedly in the last few years. The highest rates are with older people in the Northeast.

We're old, but we're not in the Northeast. (The Northeast factor is due to the dominant company there being Verizon, which pushed customers to sign up for advanced Internet plans early, when landlines were still common, so those were part of the package and most of the customers still have them.)

So why do we have one? It's not just because we've always had one, though that's a factor. The main reason is that, at least in our situation, a landline is more reliable. And that's an old copper-wire landline. Most people still with landlines have voice-over-internet, the article says. I was almost lured to sign up for that, but I'm so glad I didn't.

1. If the power goes out, your internet is out, and so is your phone if it's over internet. Copper-wire phone systems rarely go out.

2. Our internet service is unreliable. On warm days it regularly goes out at intervals. We've been trying to get this fixed for 15 years, but no luck.

More generally about cell phones:

3. Cell reception at our home is rather bad. We live half a mile from Apple world headquarters, but we can't get a reliable cell phone signal.

4. I don't like talking on cell phones. It's uncomfortable, the reception is often bad, and all that radiation going off right next to my brain doesn't put me at ease, either.

5. Cell phones in regular use have to be recharged all the time. Another nuisance. A landline doesn't have to be recharged.

6. True, landlines get more spam calls. But at least on a landline you don't have to pay for them.

No question, a cell phone is useful. Using pay phones was tolerable so long as there were still pay phones everywhere, but with their disappearance the cell phone became superior and I got one. But at least as long as we're at this house, I'm keeping the landline. And if we move, my default intention is to get another one.

Comments

[ranunculus]

Living in the middle of San Francisco we, of course, had HORRIBLE internet. The only option was a landline DSL connection. BUT we were almost exactly 3,000 feet from the switch so the connection was lousy. So we doubled the lines. Still iffy. Every time the phone people got into a box to tinker with the wires (presumably when people moved in or out) our internet would become unusable, and sometimes the associated phone would not work well.
Eventually the neighbors put up an antenna (our house was too short) and got line-of-sight internet. That improved things (a lot) most of the time but there were still issues. Donald, being a space nerd, got satellite service as soon as possible. He still has both satellite and line of sight, both have some issues, but one or the other is usually working perfectly.
As for the phone, I gave up many years ago thinking I could use a landline. I once ran for a mile and a half through very rough country to answer a page. Didn't get the job because I was "too slow to answer".

[calimac]

I'm not sure what your last anecdote has to do with having a landline. It sounds more like an anecdote about not having a cell phone. They're not mutually exclusive, you know. As I wrote in the post, I have both. When I'm going out in the wilderness, I take my cell phone. Of course, once upon a time a pager was your only option.

Also, I wouldn't want a job that required that immediate of a response to everything.

Post Paywall

[lsanderson]

The WashPost claims to have dropped their paywall until Thursday.

[cmcmck]

And you can have a landline with a call blocking system as we do.

[frith]

Thanks to a virtual monopoly in phone service combined with the corporation also being an internet service provider and television delivery service, my copper wire land line will be cut in November. The company is taking advantage of wiggle room in mandatory phone service legislation: they make fiber optic internet service available. It becomes up to the client to install and maintain a battery-backed-up Uninterrupted Power Supply in order to use that signal to make a call during a power failure. Ergo, the phone company makes subscribing to their high speed entertainment delivery service mandatory. Either that or loose everything you had: phone number, email address and retained voicemail messages. In short, extortion. This way the corporation saves money by firing the technicians required to repair and maintain the reliable, independently powered copper wire network. Fiber optic internet troubleshooting is a desk job and desk job means offshore hiring in markets with low wages. I don't know if I will be able to plug my traditional telephone into such a system.

[calimac]

Whereabouts do you live that this is happening?

I store all my e-mails etc on my own computer. That way I have access to them when the internet service goes out.

[calimac]

Our phone isn't that advanced, and I'd be reluctant to use such a service. My e-mail spam blocker traps lots of legitimate messages, and I'm not confident that a call blocking system would do much better. I'd be especially worried about calls from service companies about appointments, or from the personal cell phones of their employees telling us when they expect to arrive.

[frith]

Canada. I should have said so. 9_9

I also store all my email locally on my laptop. My ISP charges hand over fist for the privilege of using their services (monopoly, yay) and was unable to to allow Thunderbird to send emails for nearly a year. I had to use the web based service to send email. No explanations, no apologies, it just went back to working again eventually.

[cmcmck]

It works on the basis that a lot of dodgy calls are automated and won't engage with the system and a lot of dodgy real person callers won't either, whereas legit callers will engage and will choose to do so and leave a message if one is not about.

If someone engages, it tells you who is calling and you can choose to pick up.

We've had no issues with the system thus far.

[andrewducker]

The UK is retiring its copper network by the end of 2025. Which will definitely affect this kind of thing.