The Decline of the Landline

Death Metal writes "The phone network is thus not just a technical infrastructure, but a socioeconomic one. The more Americans abandon it to go mobile-only or make phone calls over the Internet, the more fragile it becomes: its high fixed costs have to be spread over ever fewer subscribers. If the telephone network in New York State were a stand-alone business, it would already be in bankruptcy. In recent years it has lost 40% of its landlines and revenues have dropped by more than 30%."

Comments

Landlines & disasters

[bloosh]

In the area of New Orleans where I live (and didn't flood), the only way for people to communicate with the outside world was with land lines and old phones which are powered completely off the line (no wall warts).

Much of the cellular system didn't work. The remaining working systems were nearly impossible to use.

I hate using cell phones for more than a few minutes and always use a land line for long conversations. I also need to keep the land line for our alarm systems.

I was amazed to discover that my collection of 40s - 70s rotary dial phones dial perfectly on the Cox Digital phone system.

Re:Decline of the Landline

[snowraver1]

Phone lines get power from the grid. You are correct that when the power goes out, the phones continue to work, and that is because they have massive banks of submarine batteries at the various exchanges to provide power for when the power is out. These batteries will not last forever, likely somewhere around 24 hours. My cell phone has a 5 day standby time (in theory)and I can charge it from my car.

I guess I am arguing that land lines aren't as robust as you might think they are. You cell phone battery will likely outlast the battery at the local exchange. Also, if there are major fiber breaks, it might take longer to restore land line service, becuase a lot of cell phone towers use wireless backhauls... Just my $.02.

Stephen Hawking?

[tepples]

I saw "artificial or prerecorded voice", had a feeling of disbelief, and looked for the statute myself. As written, it would appear to discriminate against people who use a speech synthesizer to communicate, like Stephen Hawking.