Are land lines obsolete?

jesse said:
Both. The phone is more comfortable, doesn't get hot, and the battery lasts WAY longer. I also don't drop calls and the quality is better. I don't get the *best* cell phone service in my house and my iPhone4 isn't the most comfortable for a 3 hour phone call.
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A 3-hour phone call???
 
I use Google Voice/Gmail to do long calls. Its easier, because I'm not tethered to a phone, and I can walk around freely. And the voice quality is second to none.

Especially the 2am conference calls that last like 3 or 4 hours.
 
ScottM said:
It won't happen until the law changes. There is a current regulation that prohibits robo calls and telemarketing calls to cellphones. The reason is because we do not have calling party pays for wireless. If that changes then expect that regulation to come under attack.
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The spam texts have started ...
 
Pi1otguy said:
From personal experience I gotta disagree. Probably differs in your state, but in CA cell phone 911 calls are handled by CHP while each locality has their own system for landline 911 calls.

I've called 911 from my cell about 2 or so times. I know it's a small sample size, but I was put on hold about 3 minutes the 1st time and almost 5 minutes the 2nd time before speaking to a person. OTOH the times I've called from the land line they picked up within 2 rings and help arrived within 4 minutes of picking up the phone.
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I've called 911 quite a few times from cell phones, usually to report traffic accidents / injuries if I'm the first one to stop and help. It seems that the calls go directly to the police jurisdiction of the cell phone's current location. At least, that's who answers, and there's never been a delay.

On one or two occasions when I was close to a municipal border, my calls have gone through to the adjacent jurisdictions (for example, a call might get connected to NYC PD when I am actually in the western part of Nassau County). But the calls have been transferred to the proper operator within seconds of providing actual location information.

The most interesting call was when I called 911 by accident once. I was sitting on the stoop and had my keys in my pocket with the phone, and I guess a key held the "9" key down. Within a few minutes, the police showed up at my door to make sure everything was all right. They told me they'd received a 911 call from my phone. When I took it out, sure enough, it was in "Emergency" mode.

The reason it was odd is that my cell phone is a prepaid, with a nickname on record rather then my actual name, and no listed address. I guess they tracked it via GPS.

-Rich
 
Mobile/cell phone quality sucks. It always will, due to physical reality and engineering constraints. Pretty much the entire user population of cell phone users has had to lower their expectations for quality - some of them in the mistaken belief that at some point in the future quality will improve to land line quality.

Phone companies strive to provide "five nines" (99.999%) availability for land lines. Some of that may even be mandated by legislation, in exchange for easement rights to lay their lines across public and private property. I have no idea what availability they strive for with mobile service - the engineering constraints are not promising.

Internet service providers do not normally promise any sort of availability - and even when you can purchase an SLA (Service Level Agreement) from one, it only applies to that small bit of the Internet that they control. VoIP is therefore generally great as a cheap backup to regular POTS, but even at this late date I would advise against it as a primary voice communications.

(For what it is worth, I worked at a VoIP firm and designed the OAM&P system interfaces for a VoIP Class 5-like switch product. I learned a little bit about VoIP in the process.)

These days I write software that tests the implementation of TCP/IP stacks. Recently we demoed our product to a large company whose TCP/IP stack runs on cell phones. They were interested in supporting IPv6 and we have a whole series of tests for IPv6, in addition to IPv4 tests we have. Their IPv6 wasn't yet ready enough to be tested, but during our sales demo they asked to see how easy our product was to use - so we showed how quick and easy it was to set up and run IPv4 tests on their existing stack. Only a few seconds into the testing our product had crashed their production stack. A stack already embedded in presumably hundreds of thousands of cell phones in the field. (We eventually made the sale - but ironically they dragged their heels a bit because they said a cell phone isn't a critical device and they expect users to "reboot" when such situations arise. Consider that inherent philosophy when deciding whether to use mobile phones exclusively.)

My wife and I used to each have a cell phone but we rarely used either one. So we dumped one and the remaining one is off most of the time but is carried for emergencies.
 
ScottM said:
I know of no cell systems that are simplex in their operation. Perhaps we are using the terms different. When I hear duplex that means that two people can talk at once. Cellular goes to great lengths to make that possible even though it is spectrum inefficient. Perhaps what you are perceiving as simplex is side tone in your ear not translating the background noise that the microphone is picking up.
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I think MetroPCS is half-duplex. I notice that we can't both talk at the same time when I call my niece's phone (or any of the other phones she has had with MetroPCS). I haven't noticed it with any other provider.

Metro would probably just say they're enforcing good etiquette...

-Rich
 
timwinters said:
Scott, atually, I mean precisely simplex. Only one person can talk at a time. If you start to say something it cuts off the other person. Combine this with the one second time delay and it's a real PITA to hold a conversation. I have two cell phones, my wife one and we experience all these issues on all three phones. Verizon here.

Edit: By the way...both people CAN talk at once. They just can't hear each other when they do.:wink2:
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One more edit/comment. I THINK the only time I experience a simplex connection is when I'm talking to someone who's also on a cellphone. I don't THINK I have this issue when talking to a land line from my cellphone.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Phone companies strive to provide "five nines" (99.999%) availability for land lines.
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It does not mean anything. I sat without a phone for a week because PacBell was staffed with imbeciles. Cellphone is clearly more reliable, or at least you have a say in its reliablity. Most importanly, you can have several.
-- Pete
 
I haven't had a phone line in over 7 years, and didn't have one for 10 before that one. My life on boats pretty much has always forced me to be an early adopter of wireless technology.
 
ScottM said:
It won't happen until the law changes. There is a current regulation that prohibits robo calls and telemarketing calls to cellphones. The reason is because we do not have calling party pays for wireless. If that changes then expect that regulation to come under attack.
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In Canada, we're getting telemarketing calls on cellphones. Maybe the law here is weak, or maybe nonexistent. Or maybe those calls are from offshore, out-of-jurisdiction telemarketers. A pain, anyway.

I can see satphone technology eventually displacing cell phones, same as GPS making VOR and ADF obsolete. The distance involved in the distance between the satellites and phones and the resulting time delay will be the drawback there. Or, if the much-looked-for link between brain cancer and cellphone use is ever found, land lines would suddenly get real popular again.

Dan
 
Landline, here, because FAA's sense of Antivirus software is, "you send papar (fax) and we scan it".
 
ScottM said:
Same question to you that I asked Jesse.
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For me, amongst other things, there is a corporate policy that prohibits certain business calls on either cellphones or IP-based calling services. Yeah, I know.... while I think they mean Skype, the policy is broadly written to even prohibit use of the bluetooth headsets that the corporate IT department provides to employees for ergonomics compliance.

Dilbert lives.

ScottM said:
It won't happen until the law changes. There is a current regulation that prohibits robo calls and telemarketing calls to cellphones. The reason is because we do not have calling party pays for wireless. If that changes then expect that regulation to come under attack.
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Prohibited or not, I get any number of robo and telemarketing calls to my cellphone.

All that said, I plunked down for an Ooma unit on WOOT yesterday. Reviews from my friends are quite good. Will give it a try, then decide to keep or not.... though I'm really waiting for their Android app.
 
Dan Thomas said:
I can see satphone technology eventually displacing cell phones, same as GPS making VOR and ADF obsolete. The distance involved in the distance between the satellites and phones and the resulting time delay will be the drawback there. Or, if the much-looked-for link between brain cancer and cellphone use is ever found, land lines would suddenly get real popular again.

Dan
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There's a significant inherent problem with universal satcom in terms of bandwidth/capacity. The "Cell" in cellphone is the key factor that makes cellular networks practical over a wide range of subscriber densities. To get the same kind of coverage with SVs they'd have to be so thick you could see them with the naked eye and even then the coverage wouldn't be concentrated where it's needed. Technology may overcome that issue someday or our population might grow so large we're forced to decentralize but either "solution" is likely to be in the very distant future.
 
RJM62 said:
I've called 911 quite a few times from cell phones, usually to report traffic accidents / injuries if I'm the first one to stop and help. It seems that the calls go directly to the police jurisdiction of the cell phone's current location. At least, that's who answers, and there's never been a delay.

On one or two occasions when I was close to a municipal border, my calls have gone through to the adjacent jurisdictions (for example, a call might get connected to NYC PD when I am actually in the western part of Nassau County). But the calls have been transferred to the proper operator within seconds of providing actual location information.

The most interesting call was when I called 911 by accident once. I was sitting on the stoop and had my keys in my pocket with the phone, and I guess a key held the "9" key down. Within a few minutes, the police showed up at my door to make sure everything was all right. They told me they'd received a 911 call from my phone. When I took it out, sure enough, it was in "Emergency" mode.

The reason it was odd is that my cell phone is a prepaid, with a nickname on record rather then my actual name, and no listed address. I guess they tracked it via GPS.

-Rich
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Unless your prepaid cellphone has a GPS and is regularly reporting it's position chances are they located you via cell tower "triangulation" (wrong term but closer than GPS).
 
One thing that's often forgotten is the "reverse 911" systems that can literally be life savers in the event of evacuation orders or such. We only have access to landline information, because that's geo-coded.

FEMA is working on emergency notification systems (along with legal and regulatory changes) that will allow us to call all cell phones in a particular area, but it's still some years away.
 
PilotAlan said:
One thing that's often forgotten is the "reverse 911" systems that can literally be life savers in the event of evacuation orders or such. We only have access to landline information, because that's geo-coded.
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My new town allows us to register our cells for the reverse 911 system. In my area the likely disasters would be quakes, riots, leaking water or gas pipe, or downed power lines. Most of which I'd likely choose to "shelter in place" anyway, except for a leaking gas pipe.

I really don't want calls from anyone other then friends & family so I'd truly have to weigh the cost-benefit of putting my number in yet another database.
 
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Pi1otguy said:
My new town allows us to register our cells for the reverse 911 system. In my area the likely disasters would be quakes, riots, leaking water or gas pipe, or downed power lines. Most of which I'd likely choose to "shelter in place" anyway, except for a leaking gas pipe.

I really don't want calls from anyone other then friends & family so I'd truly have to weigh the cost-benefit of putting my number in yet another database.
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That is a little different than what Alan is referring to. The system you refer to is an opt in group call system. The PSAP will call or text all the phones that have registered regardless of their locations. You could be traveling in Kitalia Finland and get the call.

The system that Alan is referring to will allow the PSAP to call all phones in an area based on location information from the mobiles. Instead of opting in the PSAP places a call origination to EACH AND EVERY MOBILE that is registered in a certain area regardless if you have opted in or are not even a resident of the area. You could simply be traveling through the area and get one of these emergency calls.

A surprising amount of the technical work is already done and implemented for this type of service. Mostly because businesses have wanted to do push advertising based on user locations. That is to say, walk through an area and get notified of sales or specials near your locations. This is a widely popular feature in Asia already. What stops it from happening here is regulations based on the model of user pays for all calls. Change that model and you will likely start getting more and more crap on your cellphones that you would ever want.
 
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