What is a landline provider?

Question

What is a landline provider?

Answer 1

company's that provide home  or biz. phone service like at&t gte  sprint ......then they also provide cell phone services under the same names just difrent divisions of the company

Answer 2

A landline provider is synonymous with Ma Bell, her Baby Bells, and all the other wanna-be's that provide PSTN (public switched telephone service) over the traditional twisted pair telephone wires that connect to most everyones homes ever since Alexander Bell (or, there abouts).

Landline is just as it says... it runs over land (and sometimes, under land).

In contrast, you have radio communications and mobile phones which provide communications over the "air-waves", which is not carried over land-based cables, like the PSTN phone lines.

Back in the days when two-way radio was the alternative to land-locked land-phones, people started using the term:  I'll call you on your "landline", to mean, I will call you on the telephone, vs. the radio waves.

Now days, people say:  I'll call you on your "cell" or "mobile", or as tradition has it, your landline.

So, now to confuse matters, we have VoIP.  In practical terms, VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) uses landlines (usually DSL Internet).  But, now we also have VoIP over Cable Internet.... and what about VoIP over your FiOS, or Fiber Optic Service.  These are all cables that run over, on, or under ground.  So, I consider VoIP as landline too.  But, most people will make a distinction between PSTN as landline, and VoIP as.....ah, well,... just VoIP, or Internet phone.