> In fact there's really no news here. As the articles state, we're down
> to 1 in 5 households that only have a landline, and that number is
> dropping all the time. When, not if.
The 1 in 5 stat looks like FUD to me.
That's B.S. The United States doesn't have the broadband or cellular
capacity to eliminate land lines [and it doesn't need to steal from TV
bandwidth either]. Early on, corporations decided to make incompatible
systems instead of a series of nationwide roaming networks. They also
didn't want gummint interference, only our tax dollars to whatever they
pleased.
The key word is ONLY. Most people who have their own homes have a land
line PLUS cellular. It's not either/or. There's not enough bandwidth for
everyone to get rid of land lines. There's not enough reliability for
everyone to switch from land lines to cellular or VOIP. Might work in
the city or inner 'burbs, but there's a lot of the country where it
would be a real hardship to lose land lines, whether or not they own/use
mobile phones or VOIP.
When was the last time you had to use VOIP during a power failure, even
one that lasted only a few hours? Or FIOS when power is out long enough
for the batteries to die? Have you ever tried to use a mobile phone
during an emergency like a hurricane? They often don't work or
connections are sporadic because everyone is tying up the network.
Verizon land lines work well. Thanks Verizon.
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