4 ms·

We use our cell phones for all actual calls, but about 6 months ago decided to get a copper telephone line to the house in case of emergencies. I don't even rec

We use our cell phones for all actual calls, but about 6 months ago decided to get a copper telephone line to the house in case of emergencies. I don't even recall what our landlines number is. Nice to know we can still place a call if the power goes out.

jonknee 11y ago
> Nice to know we can still place a call if the power goes out. You can still use your cell phone if the power goes out and it's often more reliable (fallen trees often take out phone service with the power, but not cell phone towers).
- tjohns 11y ago
  With one caveat: Cell towers aren't mandated to stay up in an extended power outage, unlike landlines. They have battery backups, but once those fail, it's a question of whether the phone company can hook up a generator in time. (Some towers in large metros have permanent generators, but not all.)
  - heartbreak 11y ago
    Not just large metros, either. I live in a < 100,000 city and have seen the failover generators outside of the building at the base of several towers. I'd imagine they're not on every tower or even any tower in rural areas given the added expense.
morganvachon 11y ago
In general, you don't have to have a subscription to a landline service to have 911 access on POTS. Federal law requires the phone companies to provide access to 911 dialed from a landline phone whether there is current service or not, and they have to ensure the line from the pole to the house/apartment is live to facilitate this (it is still the homeowner's responsibility to deal with the in-house wiring, of course). That said, if you live in one of the increasing number of states trying to circumvent these federal requirements, you may indeed have to keep paying just to have emergency access, or you may end up being forced out of landline access altogether: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/landline-rules-frustrate-telecoms/2012/04/12/gIQAG2XvDT_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/landline-rul...
- jsjohnst 11y ago
  Same with cell phones. 911 access works even without active cell service.
jsjohnst 11y ago
> Nice to know we can still place a call if the power goes out. Actually not entirely true. Following Hurricane Sandy, a majority of Manhattan from about 42nd street south to the Battery was without power for several days. A lot of the rooftop cells that fill in gaps in service lost power and so coverage area and capacity were greatly reduced. Furthermore, a fairly significant (but definitely not majority) of landlines are over VoIP with FIOS. Battery backups for the Demarcs only lasted about 12hrs and even if yours lasted longer, you still might have difficulties because some COs were flooded and/or had generator failures.
VLM 11y ago
If you live in an area with all copper lines back to the central office, you're probably good unless you have a cordless phone. You probably connect to a neighborhood SLC hut (a filing cabinet sized green box?) that converts a neighborhood to optical or perhaps a T-1 or perhaps a HDSL T-1 and feeds that single line back to partner equipment in the CO. There is usually a short term battery on the SLC hut (sometimes they catch fire). The bigger problem is the most likely reason to lose power is aerial lightning strike or tree downing the cables. Its very unusual to lose power for any other reason away from the coasts, never had rolling blackouts or whatever. So the only time I'd need to make a call (to the electric company?) is when the landline phone would be knocked out anyway either by lightning fried phone or cables laying on the ground under a tree. That was one of the nice parts of getting my first cell phone a bit over 20 years ago was I could call in power failures or whatever. Not that it happens enough to matter, LOL. With modern smart meters the electric company gets pretty fast stats on downed lines anyway, so there's not much point in calling. My uncle-in-law in a nursing home has a landline. Not a PBX extension off the nursing home but for whatever weird legal / financial reasons he has his own account with the phone company much like an apartment building has separate accounts rather than a business PBX. I suspect folks like him are part of the 8% who have a landline and no cell phone, and that number will never drop to zero.

jonknee 11y ago

> Nice to know we can still place a call if the power goes out. You can still use your cell phone if the power goes out and it's often more reliable (fallen trees often take out phone service with the power, but not cell phone towers).

tjohns 11y ago
With one caveat: Cell towers aren't mandated to stay up in an extended power outage, unlike landlines. They have battery backups, but once those fail, it's a question of whether the phone company can hook up a generator in time. (Some towers in large metros have permanent generators, but not all.)
- heartbreak 11y ago
  Not just large metros, either. I live in a < 100,000 city and have seen the failover generators outside of the building at the base of several towers. I'd imagine they're not on every tower or even any tower in rural areas given the added expense.

morganvachon 11y ago

In general, you don't have to have a subscription to a landline service to have 911 access on POTS. Federal law requires the phone companies to provide access to 911 dialed from a landline phone whether there is current service or not, and they have to ensure the line from the pole to the house/apartment is live to facilitate this (it is still the homeowner's responsibility to deal with the in-house wiring, of course). That said, if you live in one of the increasing number of states trying to circumvent these federal requirements, you may indeed have to keep paying just to have emergency access, or you may end up being forced out of landline access altogether: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/landline-rules-frustrate-telecoms/2012/04/12/gIQAG2XvDT_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/landline-rul...

jsjohnst 11y ago
Same with cell phones. 911 access works even without active cell service.

jsjohnst 11y ago

> Nice to know we can still place a call if the power goes out. Actually not entirely true. Following Hurricane Sandy, a majority of Manhattan from about 42nd street south to the Battery was without power for several days. A lot of the rooftop cells that fill in gaps in service lost power and so coverage area and capacity were greatly reduced. Furthermore, a fairly significant (but definitely not majority) of landlines are over VoIP with FIOS. Battery backups for the Demarcs only lasted about 12hrs and even if yours lasted longer, you still might have difficulties because some COs were flooded and/or had generator failures.

VLM 11y ago

If you live in an area with all copper lines back to the central office, you're probably good unless you have a cordless phone. You probably connect to a neighborhood SLC hut (a filing cabinet sized green box?) that converts a neighborhood to optical or perhaps a T-1 or perhaps a HDSL T-1 and feeds that single line back to partner equipment in the CO. There is usually a short term battery on the SLC hut (sometimes they catch fire). The bigger problem is the most likely reason to lose power is aerial lightning strike or tree downing the cables. Its very unusual to lose power for any other reason away from the coasts, never had rolling blackouts or whatever. So the only time I'd need to make a call (to the electric company?) is when the landline phone would be knocked out anyway either by lightning fried phone or cables laying on the ground under a tree. That was one of the nice parts of getting my first cell phone a bit over 20 years ago was I could call in power failures or whatever. Not that it happens enough to matter, LOL. With modern smart meters the electric company gets pretty fast stats on downed lines anyway, so there's not much point in calling. My uncle-in-law in a nursing home has a landline. Not a PBX extension off the nursing home but for whatever weird legal / financial reasons he has his own account with the phone company much like an apartment building has separate accounts rather than a business PBX. I suspect folks like him are part of the 8% who have a landline and no cell phone, and that number will never drop to zero.