Plain Old Telephone Service 101:

What is POTS? Have you heard of it or come across the term before? If you were born before the 90’s there’s a big chance POTS was a part of your everyday life. POTS stands for Plain Old Telephone Service and was the phone line technology most of us grew up with at home. POTS was the most common and fastest way for people to be connected between the late 1800s and 1980s, way before the age of the internet and it still exists today. Many existing POTS lines are found in those ‘plain old’ cables and wires you can still see dangling over our streets and neighborhoods.

Maybe you remember those old dial telephones with their curly cords. You’d plug in the phone line into the phone jack in your wall, make sure you’ve got a dial tone and then manually enter the number to connect the call.

Has Technology Changed?

The technology hasn’t changed much since then. It’s still a couple of copper wires twisted together, either running overhead or buried underground, that carry your audible voice from your home phone to your sweet grandparents in Wisconsin. That’s it. Point A to point B. For decades it met the basic needs of communication, but in the last thirty years or so things have changed. The invention of the internet and the rise of the cellular phone have ushered in not only a greater ease and convenience into our day to day lives, but more comprehensive solutions to our ever changing needs.

Plain Old Telephone Service lines are now becoming a thing of the past, and have also becoming increasingly more expensive due to lower customer demand and other inexpensive alternative options such as wireless and digital. Most businesses and companies have moved away from POTS for many reasons besides the cost. This outdated service is not compatible with vital needs such as high speed capabilities and emergency networks.