this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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The whole point of having a landline was that it worked when the power was out.
This was a network outage not a power outage.
Yea I am aware. My point is that an analog system doesn’t have network outages unless the physical copper wires are all down.
Digital systems are much more fragile.
All phone systems are digital now. Even what appears like POTS at the subscriber end turns into VoIP when it reaches the phone company.
Analog telephony was still built on a complex automated network. Those rooms full of operators manually connecting callers by plugging in physical wires haven’t been a thing for 70 years. They even started going digital in the ‘60s.
Landlines 100% work when your power is out.
On what, exactly? I have personally had the power go out countless times and always the old land line works.
100% of the time your landlines will work in a power outage. Not dependant on ??? Whatever is being suggested 🙄
I'm talking pre cell and pre internet domination. My grandma's house /neighborhood lost power this winter and there was always the reliable old long corded landline that we ordered pizza with as a matter of fact.
Remember the northeast blackout of 2003? My landline still worked fine..
https://telephones.att.com/telephones/corded-telephones/no-ac-power
Sure, but no switches lost power in this outage. And yes the power in my home could be on, but if the phone company itself has no electricity 🙃 then sure.
But generally speaking, that doesn't happen, and it didn't happen here. Land lines work without power in nearly all circumstances because the power comes through the land line itself.
But the statement you're making is a silly one. I could say "your cell phone will never work when all the cell towers are powered down and you don't have wifi and your phone company has no power either. 😑"
Still I've never had a land line not work when the power in large areas around me goes out.
"BUT WHAT IF YOU DON'T PAY YOUR BILL AND YOUR PHONE COMPANY IS PART OF A BUSINESS HOSTILE TAKEOVER AND THEY ABANDON YOU As A CUSTOMER"
uhhh... yeah I guess it won't work then. Like what are you trying to prove here?
The thing is that you're both right: your landline at your home would continue to work during a power outage, assuming the central office still had power or there wasn't a mechanical failure there. And if the CO went down, your phone would stop working. And this is a case of the CO going down.
When it was copper they did, because the switch had pretty good power redundancy and backup generators. I live near a large Verizon cell switch and it still has very large generators because an outage there would be way worse than just some towers going down.