Posted on 11/18/2008 8:34:01 PM PST by Kukai
NEVER insult landlines! My naive observation was obviously not well received!
Please pardon me. I am now much wiser (even if I don't have a landline!)
Blame Al Gore.
My only concern with the end of landline technology would be the loss of a reliable 911 option. What happens if your cell phone is dead, in a no coverage area, or lost in the couch. A land line is much more reliable in these regards. This has been my primary concern in not ending our landline at home.
Even AT&T is doing away with copper lines for POTS, with their U-Verse Fiber Optic services, and U-Verse Voice over IP phone service. Their goal is to have most of their customers over to this by 2015.
Plus, I’ll bet most 911 emergency calls come from places outside the home...like car accidents, public places. It’s not like pay phones are around much anymore.
This is preposterous. The ENTIRE communications industry is ruled by buried cables, strung up cables, microwave antennae, fiber optic cable - that are ALL connected at some point to the underlying copper infrastructure that was established long ago and upgraded over time. Copper is NOT going away and it never will. Sure, most VOICE communication (finally) is now digital over the air, through internet and Voice over IP-related technologies, but they all lead to the same place - the little copper wires that connect machines to machines and machines to the electricity grid. Until there is a way of transmitting energy over the air, there will always be copper interconnects in everything. As soon as we can project energy, then we can talk about the end of the wireline infrastructure, and only starting twenty years after we reach that point. My prediction is that this won’t be a reality for at least another 80 to 150 years. Under Obama-nation and what follows it, innovation will be set back another 20 years, so we could realistically say it will be 100 to 150 years before the end of wired communication.
Yeah, and I thought we were supposed to have flying cars by the year 2000?
I survived Ike. My cell phone worked and was charged because I bought a cigarette lighter charger.
The strange thing is my relatives out of state knew what was going on more than I did.
Yes, if things go down hill it’ll be tough to survive. And you may wonder if we’d want to.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.