Skype is down

Within 10 years chances are just about everything will be IP encapsulated, over this or that phy :-). POTS may well be still around, but not because they are not a dying technology - which they of course are - but just because the infrastructure they have is so large it will take longer until they die out. It is still nice to have them, though - the phone application here is nearly 100% to call the electricity company when there is a blackout and the ISP when their service dies.[Remarkably stable this ISP is, though, sometimes the net works for months without a hiccup, since recently delivering 1 MbPS (down) at around $12/month.... OK, plus the typically unnecessary cable TV which also costs as much and got a bit more useful recently - the English premier league matches are on again :-)].

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Reply to
Didi
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Hello! Don, everyone, it seems that the problems Skype was enduring was not related to some idiots who thought they could hack the last great free communications medium. It seems it was caused by a glitch in their own software, according to themselves. They aren't out of the woods yet they say, but they believe it will be fixed RSN. In addition most of this surfaced during a planned outage. Oh and they've also temporarily turned off the download mechanism.

Personal to you Don: Look for me to buy either the USB Flash Drive interface, or this USB gizmo,

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probably after the beginning of September.

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Gregg gregg dot drwho8 atsign gmail dot com
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Reply to
gregg.drwho8

It isn't just reliabilty. Sound quality is vastly superior too, although admittedly not as good as it was in the analogue switching days. People know how to use landlines as well. I don't know why mobiles lack sidetone but it means that people feel the need to shout into their phones, distorting sound quality and pissing off everyone around them. Research was done into this as far back as the '50s and '60s.

Given that POTS is also cheaper than a mobile call, the battery doesn't run out and you never suffer from dodgy reception, it is actually the clear winner in terms of technology. Inferior alternatives are for when a landline call isn't practical for whatever reason.

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Andrew Smallshaw
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Andrew Smallshaw

In article , larwe writes

N. America is only a small corner of the world.

There are very many good reasons for keeping a hard wired network system to companies and homes. The copper will probably disappear as fiber optics get closer to the end users.

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Reply to
Chris Hills

It happens to be where a large percentage of the world's wealth (and infrastructure spending) is concentrated.

In urban areas, you can buy fiber to your home right now; it is actual glass right up to the network interface box on your home's wall. Fiber is however only one of several options. The three primary services people want delivered are:

  1. Voice phone (Cellular, POTS, ISDN, VoIP-on-{cable,S/ADSL,etc})
  2. Pay television (cable, fiber, satellite)
  3. Internet (cable, fiber, S/ADSL, POTS dialup)

POTS is falling out of this mixture. It is an undeniable phenomenon, and whatever you might claim, in affluent countries copper to the door is a dying concept.

I myself have no use for pay television, since I don't watch TV. My household uses cellular for voice and cable for Internet. This is far from atypical (though most households do have a TV requirement; many people have cellular for voice and cable for TV/Internet).

Remember that a mobile phone number is the number people call when they want to reach YOU. Your home's phone number is the number people call when they want to reach your house.

Reply to
larwe

I'm happy for your peace of mind that you can disbelieve in the elephant in the room, however speaking as someone with actual domain knowledge and a clear and present involvement in the de-POTSification of America, I have to say that you're simply in a generation that has lower participation in the phenomenon.

Reply to
larwe

In the case of broadband internet it's not even in the top ten

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-p

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Reply to
Paul Gotch

Not quite sure what you are saying here ?

I do not see landlines ever 'going away' - but they do migrate usage. If you include Cable, 'land lines' are actually growing.

So pulse-dial-telephone cables, are now used for ADSL modems, and those in the many millions. In those networks, the old telephone ability comes pretty much 'for free', but the investment $$ are in ADSL/broadband areas.

In new-infrastructure (esp 3rd world), wireless can make a play, but it's not great at higher bandwiths to all customers.

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

So, imagine someone grabs their skype phone and dials 999 / 111 / 911 (etc) and it fails to connect ? Then, they decide to sue.... ?

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

So look closer. POTS lines are disappearing. Please don't take my word for it, observe the companies (like mine) investing billions in revamping consumer equipment that presently requires a POTS line.

Reply to
larwe

And...?

Reply to
larwe

Ermmm... maybe where you are, but not here in the UK. At least, not yet. I avoid mobile phones wherever possible, especially when abroad, due to cost. Coverage is less of an issue than it used to be, but cost is still a biggie.

Typical pattern of use here is to locate someone by mobile, and once/if it's established that both parties are near landlines, hang up and continue the conversation on POTS.

Roaming charges (i.e. phoning to/from a mobile outside the UK) have recently been capped (for certain countries and providers) by the EU, but they're still eye-watering. My daughter was recently in France for

10 days, during which time she made maybe five (short) calls home. Her bill was around £50, i.e. $100.

Steve

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Reply to
Steve at fivetrees

On Aug 18, 10:09 am, "Steve at fivetrees"

Let's parse your response carefully, eh?

Do you carry a long spool of wire with you and remain tethered to the POTS network interface in your home? No? Then guess what - you're not using your POTS connection abroad, either.

The above usage pattern was common in the US in the past, but these days people just stay on the mobile.

In fact, payphones are also a dying breed here.

In the US there may be more all-you-can-eat pricing options. Don't you have free off-peak calling plans in the UK? In the US there are also "family plans" and "free mobile to mobile", which are respectively:

  1. calls among a nominated group of numbers (typically up to 5) are free, any time.
  2. calls within the given mobile network are free.

Note that even if you're at work: medium and large businesses often do not have large bundles of POTS wires coming into the building. They'll have a single high-bandwidth connection of some kind and a private digital exchange system.

Reply to
larwe

And what makes you think people call a home wanting to speak to exactly one person and nobody else will do?

Reply to
Everett M. Greene

You are very wrong there.......

The US economy is being propped up at a rate of 1 billion USD a week by the worlds leading super power. Otherwise the USD would have dropped to half it's current value (which is half the value it had 4 years ago) The US is being propped up by others for a while. The US will be a "third world" country in a few years time without a shot being fired.

The top countries for infrastructure, wealth, expansion are no in the Americas. This is why several top US companies have been relocating out of the US.

It is getting to happen in the UK too.

Actually I agree that copper wire POTS is dying out. However it is dying out in affluent countries because the other non-affluent countries never really had it. By the time they started to deploy a lot of telephones there was already microwave and optical solutions.

Part of the reason was you need a lot more wooden poles that are expensive and a lot of copper. Copper can be stolen and resold, telegraph poles had other uses.

A Microwave repeater has little or no resale value and was a right bugger to "chop down" and dismantle for parts. You can't even use it for fire would.

I was in a middle eastern country about 20 years ago and their phone system was microwave between towns/villages and fibre optics to the distribution points on the street. It was only the last bit that was copper.

So modern Internet and comms only requires replacing the last 20-100 feet of cable.

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Chris Hills

In article , larwe writes

That is still pots.

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Chris Hills

Two of our esteemed colleagues write:

Actually, that is getting to be a bother. People, especially doctors' offices, with a 1960s mindset will call me and blithely expect me to make appointments for my wife or my daughters, or relay very complex information to them, simply because they dialed the number and I answered. "But I'm not Cathy..."

Reply to
mc

I think the only reliable measure for the real market outlook is not any of us. It is Walmart. In the same way that the purchasing power of a local currency can be measured in "Big Mac" units. Just go to Walmart (or Costco, Target, etc.) and look at the offerings. Tons of cordless phone systems for, you guessed it, POTS. And maybe one or two Skype compatible phones at rather high prices. I've asked a clerk once whether those "computer phones" really sell. "Nah, but we must carry them."

Sure, there is always that cell phone stand. Usually manned by a guy who approaches you while walking by, often reminds me of used car salesmen. And of course you'll have to sign on the dotted line for a 1-2 year contract if you want to play. With POTS I never had to do that.

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Reply to
Joerg

Sure. (Did I write it so badly?)

Not mine, no, but someone's POTS connection. Far cheaper than mobile.

I'll grant you that one - here too.

There are some such deals for POTS (e.g. BT's "Friends and Family"), but none that I know of involving mobiles that are worth a damn. Yet. (Exception: we looked into this recently due to son #1 at University - monthly phone bill mostly for calling us in excess of £120 - and found that if we were all on mobile schemes from the same supplier, we could save a little. We're not, so we can't. Am consequently changing my son's supplier.)

As for free calls, nope ;).

Indeed - ours is ISDN2 over POTS ;).

Steve

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Reply to
Steve at fivetrees

And if you go into TESCO or ASDA (WalMart's UK incarnation) in the you'll find an entire aisle full of pay as you go contractless mobile phones. You might find a a very few DECT cordless POTS phones and possibly an extremely few own brand corded POTS phone.

According to page 118 of

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In 1995 the the UK had a 106% market penetration on average for mobile phones (due to some people having multiple phones for business and private use). Not all of these people will have a landline due to a substantial minority of them being teenagers living with their parents and university students.

Their primary means of contact is the mobile phone since it is personal to them and not their parents phone, or a line they can't only contacted on during term time.

From my own experience most of my contemporaries (late twenties graduates) only have a fixed line phone as it either comes free with their cable internet connection or they are required to have one due to needing it to run an ADSL connection over. Personally I don't even know my POTS number I'd have to look it up in my mobile phone's address book to find it.

The USA on the other hand only had 71% penetration on average.

-p

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Reply to
Paul Gotch

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