Could in home, or "land" telephone lines ever go away? What about rotary dialing?

Question

I read a story today that in home land telephone lines are disappearing at a rate of 10% a year, give or take. Of the remaining lines, many are digital VoiP services like Skype, etc...

I have a wonderful old Western Electric rotary dial candlestick phone from the 30's I use on weekends, when I'm home, just calling friends and family to shoot the breeze. It's so much warmer and nostalgic than my cell phone, a little piece of history for fun. This phone needs actual, analog phone service like Verizon, AT&T, etc provide. It will not work with digital VoiP as the digital service does not recognize the clicks, which in reality is just about simple analog voltage changes.

There are still some people without cell phones, albeit few... I wonder if phone comapnies will drop land lines in a few years. I hope not.

My antique, restored, candlestick phone will become a worthless paperweight.

Answer 1

the RBOCs are trying to phase out pulse dialing, with digital central offices and SS7, the days of the telco having to convert DTMF to rotary for the old stepper CO, it is the other way around. Now they have to convert pulse to process thru the digital CO.

There will always be landline phones, too many wired phones out there, too many applications cannot use VOIP.

Answer 2

Good news, your phone probably will not be worthless, at least for a good while. Yes, it is true, that many phone companies are switching to voip; but when you get a service like Vonage, they give you a box, that has a regular POTS RJ-11 jack on it (for regular landlines).

What I also believe to be true is that SIP phone service is going to be the new trend. It's an interesting technology, and I have am curious to see where it will be going in the future. You can already buy phones that support it, but I wouldn't advise doing that at this point.

And yes, I'm sure they will make SIP to POTS RJ-11 converters; just like they are doing for analog televisions (analog to digital converters).