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A Nationwide Comcast Landline Outage is Affecting Thousands of Businesses (theverge.com)
Comcast's Xfinity phone service is apparently suffering a massive outage today, knocking out phone service for thousands of companies across the country that still largely rely on landline access to do business. From a report: According to DownDetector.com, Comcast phone service began experiencing issues around 8AM ET this morning and by the afternoon, areas around the country have started reporting disruptions. The areas most affected appear to be the Pacific Northwest, California, the tri-state area, and Florida. The official support Twitter account for Comcast Xfinity's residential and business services has acknowledged the issues, tweeting at 1PM ET today that some "customers may still be experiencing an issue with their Voice service," though Comcast has yet to release an official statement regarding the issue.
In the pre-VoIP days when phone lines were hard-wired into the central office, you were always able to pick up the phone and get a dialtone to at least dial the operator or call 911. The VoIP part is the big difference since you need all 7 OSI layers in place before you can even think about making a call. POTS central offices had batteries providing backup power and the system was designed to be as resilient as possible...but you can't do much more than voice with a system like that.
I work at 9-1-1.
EVERYONE should have a landline, even if you never use it. The day you need it for 9-1-1, you'll be glad.
See, it's not just the reliability of landline...it's the instant and infallible (mostly) address lookup.
Any other calling service, IP phones, VoIP software, cellular, radio, satellite...you have a slim chance of the address appearing instantly on the dispatcher's screen. A few seconds can be the difference between dying and living. Also, FYI many calls include a caller who CAN'T say where they are due to suffering, bleeding, screaming, fear, being chased, burning flames, etc. YOU WANT YOUR ADDRESS TO APPEAR AUTOMATICALLY.
Seconds don't matter. Not when the police take 15 minutes to arrive and the ambulance takes 10. If you go into cardiac arrest 10 minutes and 30 seconds doesn't matter when compared to 8 minutes. You're still dead. If someone breaks in, 15 minutes don't matter when compared to 3 minutes when you're being stabbed.
My family knows CPR, First Aid, and how to shoot. Why in the hell would we need a worthless government service like 911? (And before someone comments 'fire', I have a pond with several thousand gallons of water and two trash pumps that can do about 250 gallons per minute each.)