The writing has been on the wall for some time, and I suspect that some landline customers have suffered with poor support for years because the telecoms have cut back on the amount they spend on maintaining the old infrastructure. Times they are a changin.
Perhaps 3-4 years ago, an AT&T tech was at my home to repair a landline, & mentioned that AT&T would prefer that all landlines go away.
He didn't like it. A large part of his workload was expensive assistance calls to elderly customers who were having issues with voice over internet that the sales force convinced them to 'upgrade' to. When possible, he would find a way to turn the assistance calls into non-billable service.
So perhaps customers on both landlines and VoIP suffer from poor customer service. I have little doubt that providing poor customer support for VoIP costs less than providing poor support for landlines, though.
[quote="KentE"]
Perhaps 3-4 years ago, an AT&T tech was at my home to repair a landline, & mentioned that AT&T would prefer that all landlines go away.
He didn't like it. A large part of his workload was expensive assistance calls to elderly customers who were having issues with voice over internet that the sales force convinced them to 'upgrade' to. When possible, he would find a way to turn the assistance calls into non-billable service.
So perhaps customers on both landlines and VoIP suffer from poor customer service. I have little doubt that providing poor customer support for VoIP costs less than providing poor support for landlines, though.[/quote]
Bold type all mine,
I'd like to suggest an edit "]So perhaps customers on both landlines and VoIP. major cell providers and MVNOs'suffer from poor customer service.
Cellular voice is pretty reliable and good quality.
Instead of voip or a traditional line, a bluetooth adapter that connects the cell phone to the landline system, or one of the traditional desktop or cordless phone systems with bluetooth built in, might be a better solution.
I haven't looked, but maybe there's a product out there which is a desktop or cordless phone, that takes a sim card in it's base, and then connects to the phone wiring system to also make the line available to existing desktop and cordless bases.
Straightalk, Verizon and others, have offered home phone systems that are cellular yet allow one to plug a cordless phone into them. I used a Straighttalk one for a while on the Verizon network without any problems----$15+ a month unlimited. One would think that this could connect to one's home system where it enters the house without too much work. Barring that, a cordless phone with several handsets would work well.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Straight-Talk-ZTE-Home-Phone-Z723EL/567593229?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&adid=22222222227000000000&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=42423897272&wl4=pla-51320962143&wl5=9031388&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=567593229&wl13=&veh=sem
We have been using the straight talk home phone with a cordless handset for several years.
You can't beat the voice quality for long conversations,
And, Wonder of wonders that same straight talk home phone gives us roaming all over the US even when cell signal are non existent over our other cell phones. After a long days travel we have been able to set up in remote campgrounds and talk for hours. What a joy.
It is a marvelous unit,.
works like advertised even under extreme conditions
Yeah--- I forgot to mention that you can take it with you anywhere.
My obi outputs into an extension which I believe is treated as an input by a junction box which then outputs to all the other phone jacks in the house. I then get to plug my multi function laser printer into it for the occasional fax as well as my office speakerphone.
That's a good point about replacing a home line with a cell line. Can you send a fax over a cell line? Probably yes since it's analogue and it works with the obi even though I have the model that doesn't explicitly support faxing.
I doubt fax works over a cellular connection.
Modem works, though... :silly:
There seems to be a way:
https://www.verizonwireless.com/articles/how-to-send-a-fax-from-your-phone/
What is a land line?
It's little copper wires that run below or above the surface of the earth and connect to the telephone wires of a house or business and transmit voice signals back and forth between a caller and a callee so that they can communicate, which is unlike cell phones that don't have wire but utilize the radio wave frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum to send wireless signals between phones.
After having dug to a depth of 1,000 meters last year, French scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1,000 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors had a telephone network all those centuries ago.
Not to be outdone by the French, English scientists dug to a depth of 2,000 meters and shortly after headlines in the U.K. newspapers read: "English archeologists have found traces of 2,000-year-old fiber-optic cable and have concluded that their ancestors had an advanced high-tech digital communications network a thousand years earlier than the French."
One week later, Israeli newspapers reported the following: "After digging as deep as 5,000 meters in a Jerusalem marketplace, scientists had found absolutely nothing. They, therefore, concluded that 5,000 years ago Jews were already using wireless technology."