[jambalaya8]

Having enjoyed the phreak subculture from the time I was a wee child, and truly learning so much about the way the world (and network optimization) worked through telephony over decades, this just makes me sad and sick. I am not suggesting landline service is the only thing that should exist, but this seems really just depressing (from a nostalgic standpoint) and dangerous (from a 'what was copper good for, anyway?' standpoint). But I guess noone needs reliable emergency communications. At least POTS is not totally gone in the States yet.

Still remembering the Hawaiian storm that made Kauai a bastion of cutting edge telephony in the 1990s and the way people let go of landlines in NY after the Hurricane there about a decade ago.

So long, weird quirky Finnish system, though I hardly knew ye.

[black_knight]

Where I live we have long since shut down our copper network. I miss the low latency and not constantly talking over each others sentences.

[jambalaya8]

I certainly do not miss the ability for only one person to speak at a time on a phone call. Wonder how many people remember their last phone call like that (on cellular or on cordless).

[black_knight]

What do you mean? Like either you speak or the person in the other end speak? That I don't remember! Was that a restriction on early cellular and cordless phones? Our phones had cords.

I remember we had only one line going into our house, but several phones, so if one picked up one of the other phones one were in the same call.

[telesilla]

Maybe you never called the other side of the world in the 80s, latency was easily 2 seconds! And the price..

[HenrikB]

I don't recall 2s latency, but do remember 0.25-0.3s latency one way for transatlantic phone calls in the 90s, which happens when the call got related over geostationary satellites rather than over Atlantic cables. It was basically a 0.5-0.6s roundtrip delay enough to cause you to talk over each other.

It only happened when there were too many callers at the same time. The solution was often to redial and hoping you ended up with a non-satellite call.

[Sharlin]

How is copper more reliable than fibre as an emergency communications medium? I guess 1800s technology suffices to transmit something over copper, so there's that.

[codeulike]

Because copper wires could carry enough power to make a landline work when the mains electricity was off due to a power cut

Edit: also domestic routers are buggy and unreliable and need to be restarted regularly

[brianwawok]

Why is why landlines can easily have a battery. And my cell has one built in

[hulitu]

And when the battery is empty, it is empty.

[jambalaya8]

And device companies have gone out of their way to prevent removeable/extra batteries (not talking about power banks).

Having to worry about the CO power, house power, device power, and the power going to towers is a little much for my taste.

[AnssiH]

For residential users in Finland, the last-mile replacement for POTS is not fibre but cellular, at least where phone calls are concerned.

[nikanj]

Fibre to the house and calling over wifi is the most typical way. Hasn’t the US moved to wifi calling? It’s such a simple win, as screaming packets to a distant 5g tower eats much more battery than talking to nearby wifi

[stackskipton]

Yes, most cellular carriers have wifi calling enabled. However, my in laws have some cellular device that provides a POTS jack they plug a phone into and it’s powered from the wall. That’s is always talking to cellular network.

[jodrellblank]

The UK is currently going through the analogue copper landline shutdown, with a scheduled cutoff of Jan 2027 (already pushed back once). The gov website says:

> ""Analogue networks have been in operation for decades and have reached the end of their serviceable life. The telecoms industry is finding it difficult to source the parts required to maintain or repair connections as suppliers are no longer manufacturing them. Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, reported that 2023 saw 20% more service incidents on the PSTN compared to 2022, resulting in a 60% increase in the number of service hours lost to customers

...

If you have other devices connected to your phone line, such as alarm systems, telecare devices or fax machines, you should take steps to ensure they will continue to function correctly.

...

The analogue landline carries a low voltage power connection directly from the telephone exchange, which is sufficient to power some basic corded handsets without needing to plug them into the wall. This means that in the event of a local power cut, these corded handsets will continue to function as long as the telephone exchange still has power.

Digital landlines cannot carry a power connection, which means handsets and routers must be powered from your home power supply, and they will not function in a power cut unless you have a backup power system such as a battery or generator. Telecare devices connected to a digital landline network may not work during a power cut.

Communications providers are required by Ofcom to take all necessary measures to ensure uninterrupted access to emergency organisations for their customers, including in the event of a power cut."""

- https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-transition-from-analogue-to-d...