Elderly 'Hit by Line Rental Charges' (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a BBC report: Recent increases in line rental charges have hit elderly people the hardest, according to an Ofcom report. Between December 2009 and December 2016, line rental prices had increased by as much as 49% for some customers, the regulator said. And of the people with standalone landlines in their homes, 71% were aged 65 or over. Ofcom recently revealed plans to make BT -- with nearly 80% of the UK market -- cut line rental costs by 5 British Pound ($6.1). A huge proportion (43%) of the 2.9 million households with a landline only are occupied by people aged 75 and over. "Older consumers are particularly affected, as they are more likely to be dependent on fixed voice services if they do not have a mobile phone or an internet connection," the report said.

Comments

Yes, "line rental" is for POTS

[tepples]

"Line rental" covers the cost of maintaining a phone line used for POTS and/or DSL. POTS (plain old telephone service) is the "old skool phone" you mention, and DSL (digital subscriber line) is an Internet connection delivered over higher frequencies on the same copper.

This probably raises a question among some of you: "So why even subscribe to POTS in the cellular era?" Even without considering the pricing structure differences between the U.S. and British phone markets, an advantage of POTS over cellular is that POTS lets you have an extension on each storey (as they spell it), so that you don't need to go upstairs or downstairs to answer the phone. In addition, POTS allows use of a fax machine. I know some federal and state government agencies in the USA still require certain tax records to be faxed; does Britain?