Yes You heard right Why VOIP is dead
Here is why you absolutely need a physical landline, an old-fashioned phone number. You may think of me what you will, but think of these too;
Are you aware that the entire internet edifice stands on chicken legs, ready to topple over at any time? Any loss of a major server means loss of service for you. And servers are not impregnable. Anything from human error to malicious hacker or terrorist attack can take down a server, sometimes for good.
Ever hear the old story about the hospital where life-support patients kept dying at mid-day? The wards were clean, the technology top-notch. The doctors were some of the finest in the country. Nurses more sweet and dedicated than their just weren’t found. So why were people dying every day? Well, they hired a crack detective team to get to the bottom of it. Eventually they noticed that it all was happening in one ward, and in one room. Two officers disguised themselves as trashcans and put in a 24 hr. watch. Sure enough, around one o’clock in the afternoon the orderly came round to do his vacuuming. He went to the electrical outlet in the corner, pulled out what was currently plugged in, and attached his vacuum. Um, the life-support machines had been plugged in there….
Would you risk that happening to your phone service?
We did some research and found only 2 or 3 companies still selling POTS lines at a discounted price. You can check out Pioneer Telephone but they do not offer an unlimited local and long distance plan. You can call your local phone company like Verizon and have a large phone bill at the end of the month. If you live in the NY NJ region you may want to check out Cucumber Communications
They have very affordable phone plans. Especially if you are bundling local and long distance you will see a significant savings
Ever heard of the folks who carry a spare cellphone around the house for emergencies? They keep it powered and when Junior is going for a hike in the woods they slip it into his knapsack. Not because they expect things to go wrong, but just in case. They know; A phone can save lives.
Its good policy.
And your home phone can save lives too. When things go all haywire, when you are hunkering down under a table after a hurricane has blown your roof off your house, that telephone may be your lifeline. But only if its working. Any phone that needs the electricity to work is no good. And a VOIP telephone works only on electricity. When the power is down your phone is good for nothing. Only a solid old-fashioned landline will work without electric power in your home. I would be amiss if I did not state the obvious; landlines are not absolutely foolproof either – a falling tree or two can take out the phone lines nicely. But getting both a landline and a VOIP line really secures the best of both worlds for you.
If the power dies you have the plain-old telephone service phone line, and for the usual use you can choose to use the VOIP line.
So for two reasons you need to have a physical landline, the one you thought is ancient history; 1. The VOIP is based on the internet, which is becoming more of a terrorist target with every passing day, and 2. because it needs electrical power to work, something that is often missing precisely when you need it most. So although VOIP is a wonderful alternative, safety precautions dictate that you have a landline as well as an internet line. Its like insurance; you don’t want to need it, but you need it to be there for you. Just in case.
