Home Telephone Service.

[AT2796]

I have a POTS line (very expensive) because we don't get cell service where I live (boonies). I don't have VOIP because in a power outage I wouldn't have a phone. Any other suggestions?

You may want to look into a battery backup for your modem/router. Probably only good for 4-6 hours of voip dial tone. Is your internet good enough to support voip?
Being out in the boonies I'm sure your 4-6 hour power outages are far and few between.

Most of my customers in the boondocks wont call in unless their phone doesn't work 2 days after power came back on.

[countryman]

I've powered my VOIP router from an inexpensive inverter and a car battery when my power co. decided to have a half day off (planned and announced).
Folks living in areas where power outages may occur unexpectedly often keep a generator set ready, not only for telephone purposes.

[Key2871]

Our provider used to be there during power outages, but now the power goes out, so does the service.
So we stopped renting their modem that had back up but when the service dropped with the power, not such a good deal anymore.
But, if your provider stays up when power is down then by all means get a small UPS to run your modem for voice.

[countryman]

Hmmm I had not thought about that one. My "power outage" was just a couple houses for underground cable work that needed to be done.  The internet provider has a number of boxes out in the streets that connect the old copper wires to fiber main lines. Not sure they all have UPS... that might be a major safety concern.

[MMikeJBenN27]

Ma Bell recording my calls is not the issue.  HACKERS getting my account numbers is.  Encryption?  They always find a way around that.  Besides, I have no patience with "dropped calls" and breaking up.  HOME phones are generally totally reliable.  Cell phones are not.  They are great for being able to communicate while away from home, but they are a convenience item, not good enough for a utility.  $85.00 per month phone service?  Mine is only about $28.+.  Only 66% of the millennials are cell only, and you know that number is lower for us oldsters, so having Home Phone service is NOT an exception.  And if we keep up our subscriptions, they won't be discontinuing it.  Only if we all cancel will they do that.

[Dan/Panther]

This box you have sounds interesting... If I've understood it right, it's a box with a sim card in it that creates a wireless hotspot but you can also plug a phone into it. If there are no wires then it must have an ATA built in to convert the signal from the analogue telephone to VOIP.

I wonder if the box could be hacked so the ATA could be made to point to a C*net server?

I can try to find further info, but the ability to analyze is above my pay grade.

D/P

[tallrick]

I dumped my mom's land line this month. At my home I have been free of a land line since 2009 and thanks to Asterisk and a channel bank rotary phones ar eno problem. Recently I took another channel bank and T! card and set up the same system at mom's place., where I now spend most of my time due to her illness. Her ATT line had no caller ID, no long distance and no call waiting and cost 44 dollars a month. Ditched it for OOMA and kept her old phone number from the 60's. I even found the old Wsetern Electric black 500 phone from 1959 that came with the house and had the old Mohawk number before they changed it in the early 60's. Of course I also lik her pbx to mine through IAX so it's all extensions on one system. Her landline has not been an actual land line since at least 2005 because when the hurricane hit and power was off for a few days the line went dead. I also set up a fixed point wireless box with a sim card in case al fails and mom can still call 911.

[andy1702]

I'm amazed by the apparent state of landline phone services in the US. Not having a proper old fashioned line is ok until the power goes out. Okay, you can have a generator, but that  won't power the fibre repeater down the street.

Given the emegrencies you guys have such as forest fires, twisters and earthquakes etc, I wonder how many lives have been lost because of communications failures due to power  outages?

[19and41]

The reason I went with a alternative provider is because my POTS was failing once a week on average for up to 5 hours at a time.  Part of it was destruction of portions of the copper lines by scrappers.  I had first went with CLEAR wireless internet, but it was shut down a few years ago.  The wireless service was taken down occasionally by scrappers as well.  I think they, like the locusts of old, have left our area, but AT&T's pricing practices keep me away from their service.

[Owain]

I'm amazed by the apparent state of landline phone services in the US. Not having a proper old fashioned line is ok until the power goes out. Okay, you can have a generator, but that  won't power the fibre repeater down the street.

It's coming to Europe too. BT in the UK intend to migrate everyone to VoIP/fibre by 2025

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/19/bt_pushes_ahead_with_plans_to_switch_off_traditional_telephone_network/

In the comments there's a link to this study

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/engineering/RAEngLivingwithoutelectricity.pdf

The wired telephone system, powered from batteries in the exchange, continued to operate over most of Lancaster. ... Many people who had replaced wired handsets with wireless discovered that these do not work without a mains supply.
     Mobile phone systems did not hold up. ... Some have a battery back-up that continues to provide a service for an hour or two but few, if any, cope with the 30-hour loss
     Most domestic internet connections were also lost.
     The loss of communication services was one of the most significant problems reported by many people.

BT's opinion is

We believe that power back-up should be provided to allow a customer a minimum of one hour during which to make such a call, and believe that this strikes a sensible balance between the need to provide "lifeline" protection for customers for a period that minimises risk of harm, and other factors such as technical constraints, customer experience, cost and environmental impacts. ...
     It should be noted that the current proposals from Openreach would provide battery back-up only for active Fibre Voice Access (FVA) ports on the Optical Network Termination (ONT) box, ....  The FVA service uses Analogue Telephone Adapter (ATA) circuitry in the ONT, and it is this functionality that will be backed-up by the Openreach battery unit.  Thus protection in the event of a power cut is afforded to customers taking an FVA-based service from a CP.

NB protection would NOT be available to customers using a non-FVA or independent VoIP service separate from the broadband contract.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/63912/bt_group_plc.pdf

It seems as though BT Openreach want to stop doing even that if they are going to discontinue their battery back up boxes

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/10/openreach-to-stop-providing-battery-backup-for-fttp-broadband.html

[19and41]

It looks like in a situation where there will be optical transmission lines, the only reasonable backup would be wireless carrier over lines alternative to the predominant system, say Microwave links between cells and the functional portions of the system.

[andy1702]

So what BT are saying is basically after the first hour of an emergency situation you don't matter any more.