[DocTomoe]

Pure old copper-line phones did not need a working power outlet in your home - electricity was introduced to the system at facilities of the phone company (often miles away), and often used a dedicated electric grid.

With VoIP, you tend to have your own, plugged-in wall box. Which becomes useless the moment your electricity stops, e.g. in case of natural disasters.

Also, analog telephony just sounds better than digital one. No downsampling happening.

[throwawaaarrgh]

and if you want to dial 911 with a land line, you literally only need a speaker and resistor connected to the phone line. you can yell into it as a mic, and just tapping the line on and off dials a number.

[kijin]

Has anyone tried plugging all of their internet-related equipment into a UPS, including the wall box? Will that allow you to keep VoIP working in the event of a power outage, or is it a pointless exercise since the ISP's equipment on the pole will also be down?

[timrichard]

I did this during our last power cut. The ISP was unaffected. Kept a few table lamps going too.

[benjaminl]

Analog telephones have terrible bandwidth. Just 300–3,300 Hz. This it technically called the voiceband, but it cuts off a good portion of female speech.

Also, all phone lines these days, wether POTS or VOIP are digitally trunked and switched.

[nikau]

Not to mention the exchange usually had tens or hundreds of lead acid batteries which could keep it running for a long time.

[TylerE]

Analog telephony doesn’t get used anymore. As soon as the call hits a telco box it’s going digital