
A Longing for the Lost Landline - adam
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/opinion/landine-phone.html
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AnssiH
Landlines were in the news in Finland recently as Telia (one of the large
carriers) disconnected their last landline subscriber connections a few days
ago (Finnish): [https://www.telia.fi/telia-
yrityksena/medialle/epress?articl...](https://www.telia.fi/telia-
yrityksena/medialle/epress?articleId=eab8509e-7629-4bed-a6f1-64c228df4b4d)

The closing of Telia landlines was announced a year ago when approx. 6000
subscribers remained nationwide.

Apparently there are still almost 100k consumer landline subscriptions on
other carriers, though. The peak was in 1997 with 2.7M total subscribers.
(Finland's population is 5.5M).

Most carriers haven't sold new subscriptions in years, and the prices continue
increasing on existing plans as subscriptions dwindle - they are nowadays much
more expensive than mobile plans (e.g. Elisa English pricing:
[https://elisa.fi/attachment/content/Elisa_Lankapuhelin_hinna...](https://elisa.fi/attachment/content/Elisa_Lankapuhelin_hinnasto_0110_2018_EN.pdf)).

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sologoub
There’s a much more practical problem with landlines going away - VoIP needs
external power to work. With PG&E power outages, cell and VoIP service was
largely gone. Having a copper line is a safety concern in such situations.

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falcolas
Yup, this combined with a guarantee of service for emergencies makes landlines
irreplaceable for some people.

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guidoism
What I miss about the landline is the quality of voice compared to cell
phones. The latter always sounded tinny to me. It’s only just now getting
better with stuff like FaceTime audio.

