People with house alarms. People with fax machines. People with medical equipment that sends information to their doctors a couple of times a day. People who don't trust VOIP providers. People who want to be properly geolocated when they dial 911. People who want to use a phone when the power goes out for longer than a cell phone can hold a charge (think hurricane-prone states).
Here's a good one: People who want to talk on the phone.
I stayed on a remote ranch in New Mexico back in April. The owner was at the next ranch over, about five miles away. I needed to call her, so I picked up the phone. A real land line phone. Good Lord, I'd forgotten what a quality phone call sounds like. It was as if she was right there in the room with me. No awkward cellular delay. Talking over each other was OK and natural and you could still understand the other person. It was an absolute delight. I already have my current place wired with VOIP, but in my next home I'm going to get a landline.
Landlines may not fit into your lifestyle or mindset, but that doesn't mean they don't have value.
"Good Lord, I'd forgotten what a quality phone call sounds like. It was as if she was right there in the room with me. No awkward cellular delay."
Right. I have a friend in Switzerland who had an ISDN voice line. Synchronous 64Kb/s digital voice end to end. No jitter. Swisscom discontinued that recently and now he has inferior VoIP.
People with house alarms. People with fax machines. People with medical equipment that sends information to their doctors a couple of times a day. People who don't trust VOIP providers. People who want to be properly geolocated when they dial 911. People who want to use a phone when the power goes out for longer than a cell phone can hold a charge (think hurricane-prone states).
Here's a good one: People who want to talk on the phone.
I stayed on a remote ranch in New Mexico back in April. The owner was at the next ranch over, about five miles away. I needed to call her, so I picked up the phone. A real land line phone. Good Lord, I'd forgotten what a quality phone call sounds like. It was as if she was right there in the room with me. No awkward cellular delay. Talking over each other was OK and natural and you could still understand the other person. It was an absolute delight. I already have my current place wired with VOIP, but in my next home I'm going to get a landline.
Landlines may not fit into your lifestyle or mindset, but that doesn't mean they don't have value.