Wonder how many of the 200,000 plus employees still maintain a home phone line even though quite a few jobs are tied to that part of the business? The only time I see phones these days is when I report in to the office or go to a business.
27 replies (most recent on top)
Don’t know about anyone else but the electricity in my house is run through numerous wires and every device has to be plugged directly into those wires for them to work. Kind of like my telephone. Internet and tv services used to work some years ago.
Apparently people on here think wires are obsolete. How do you get electricity into your home? You're not running wireless devices or charging them batteries without wires.
My 90 year old aunt in NC has a landline, no cellphone. Her service went out on a sunday 3 months ago. Her service was not restored until the following friday, even though I called to get an escalation on the ticket. T does not care about landlines.
Landline in case of 9-1-1 emergency, plus the voice quality is far superior to my smart phone.
I live out of footprint so no landline or internet from T. I use Mobile for cell as bad T coverage...direct TV being cut off end of march...laid off.
My landline is VoiP for which I pay $0 per month, super cheap international calls, link to cell, voicemail, text.
I guess I'd still have POTS service if I needed to dial up a modem to AOL
Lot of equipment in the CO’s that will never be used again...
The phone company wants to exit the legacy phone business. One more state left stopping them now is California. Every other state has passed legislation allowing them to do so. Once they get California signed off after appropriate “lobbying,” it’s off to the fcc for final permission to turn off the switch. That will truly be the end of an era.
No T landline svc where I live but have no loyalty to this company and will get rid of DIRECTV and T wireless svc when my time’s up. Only had them due the huge employee discounts. Retiree discounts s---.
Wow there is a debate about “Legacy services” on this thread. No wonder why T’s stock is sub $30 where it should be with people vying for landline technology...lol.
I do and will keep it as long as possible. Between the frequent fires / wind storm power outages and a background covering the C&E nighttime duty - if the s__t hits the fan, the CO battery will get your house an emergency call for days longer than a VOIP battery, your cell phone charge, or the cell towers that don't get the backup batteries swapped often enough or tend to burn down on the mountain tops.
But worth noting that for the last 10 yrs - the corp. just calls the landline to get me to help get fiber back online ASAP.
Copper fills are dropping under 15% in lots of existing metro neighborhoods and new greenfield developments nationally are showing <5% take rates - so POTS really isn't a blip on the radar of installation or executives. There's no real money to be had in those truck rolls.
@xrb LOL If I was an executive I wouldn't waste my time on here but instead laughing my a-- off on the way to the bank.
Ever tried calling 911 on a cell phone? The police arrive much faster when called from a landline because they know the exact location already.
Gave up the landline and the buggy whip a long long time ago. As our employer adapts to current needs and technology, so do us consumers.
I'm not going to buy something I have no use for just to give charity to my employer. If they offer something I do have use for, such as internet and cable, of course I would support my employer before the competition.
Unless they surplus me that is.
If you have internet service with AT&T, it's on a landline. Landlines receive very little attention compared to 10 years ago, even the internet lines that run across the same infrastructure as "landlines" seem to receive very little attention these days. If 5G is the answer, it's really not.
@ijc You must be an id--t typical of a T executive. Everyone you criticized had a valid point in one way or a another. The point of this thread is "Legacy services". Other than businesses, I don't know many consumers who have a home phone line other than those that have mentioned that AT&T wireless service s---s in their area.
I have a landline b/c it is still a regulated utility, so they have to fix the service quickly if it goes out. VOIP or internet phone service gets classified differently, so it can be much longer for them to fix it.
@zln If you're an employee (the OP is about employees) and you're paying for a magic jack instead of att landline, you deserve to get surplused.
@ipu You must not be an employee so the topic doesn't pertain to you. If you can't afford to pay the negligible government fees on a company provided line you should rethink your financial situation.
@vvz @pti You might want to look into amateur radio as a backup communication system. Cellular and landline service fail in disasters.
My husband and I live in a rural area and we have a land line because ATT cell service s---s where we live and the Land Line is not thru ATT. If it's an emergency at least we have the Land Line and can make calls.
I live alone in a cold winter climate and need a reliable communication method if something happens to me at home. Can't rely on the electric company with all it's outages.
I have a VOIP line through my cable company, because Verizon is the ruler where I live. They aren't maintaining the copper, and seemed to throw a delay of at least 3-5 days to fix anything if you were ATT.
great point OP, I bet many of the employees on this board don't have any landlines yet b--ch and moan about the company laying people off. hello!!! I have TWO landlines. even if I have to pay for a landline I will have one as in an emergency my landline will probably work when the mobile network is overloaded.
I don't have have a landline because:
1) I live in the year 2019
2) My mobile phone goes everywhere I do and the landline doesn't
3) I'm not paying T for an archaic technology developed in the late 1800's
Of course, it sits between my typewriter and my whale oil lantern.
It's obsolete technology. In the 1990s, the internet was largely on dial-up, running over telephone lines. Now the reverse is true, with broadband, telephone runs over internet. I have a less than $4/month magicjack, works fine, LD included. Cellphones also have no concept of LD anymore.
Land line telephony has gone the way of the stage coach and buggy whip. I believe the year over year decline last quarter was 17% (can be seen on a 10-Q).
I have a landline because:
1) It doesn't cost the company any more truck rolls than the initial Uverse Internet dispatch since the VoIP service is provided by the gateway.
2) 911 centers know where I am if I need to call 911. There's no need to state my address.
Same
I dont have a land line because it would be free to me as an employee but would cost the company money to send out a technician to install it and to provide me the service each month for something I wouldnt even use. So really Im saving the company money by not having one.