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If I were building a home, there's no way I'd run a traditional phone jack today. I know very few people that even use a "house phone."
okay. Maybe not traditional phone jacks, but why not more than one traditional looking jack from the company that supplies your phone service, although in my last apartment, the computer and telephone service worked fine with the old phone jacks. I'm sure the electrician who rewired my house would have done it if I had asked him, and my insurance company was willing to pay to replace the ones I lost. I asked for two. It was the tech who refused and he made a mess like the cable people use to do when cable was new. So everything that relies on the wifi entry into the house is connected in one spot in a tangle of wires and plugged into one electrical hook up. Since its behind the tv, its hard to clean. I hate it.
I would have liked to have had my 1949 best western rotary phone on my desk with my super size caller id.
Last edited by newcomputer; 07-29-2019 at 01:34 PM..
In the last 2 places that I have lived in, there have been no phone jacks to be found. Most, if not ALL equipment (fax machines, phones) all expect the owner to operate off of the internet. The phone jack was so incredibly simple- just plug the thing in and you were "good to go". What has happened?
Weird thing about my last (only) apartment I lived in. There were CAT5 (5e, 6, 6A... whatever they were) jacks instead of phone jacks. Behind most jacks, were two wires. This allowed the jacks to be daisy chained.
One outlet in the kitchen had the two wires and a third, single pair (blue + white) coming into it. It was the outside pair from the pedestal. So, no matter if you used the jacks for ethernet or landline telephone, the wires carried the signal the same, and an RJ11 (telephone) fit and snapped inside the wider RJ45 jack.
Isnt the internet extremely slow, being plugged into a phone jack? those little wires were never intended to carry so much data and bandwidth.
DSL is up to about 3Mbps however the discussion here isn't about internet service over the phone line but phone service over Internet(VOIP).
For example you can buy Ooma box for about $100, it's one time charge and unless you want some of the advanced features you only pay about $5 per month from there. The Ooma device is connected to your router or can even go between the router and the modem. Phone service is then routed over your internet connection.
The Ooma device has single phone jack so you could connect a base phone to it and then use the additional phones in other rooms. You can also connect it to existing phone line inside the home.
We have a house phone, but it doesn't plug into a jack. We have a device from Verizon that plugs into an electrical outlet, and the phone plugs into the device with standard phone wires. It's not cell service, and it's not the internet. It's kind of a mystery to me.
If I were building a home, there's no way I'd run a traditional phone jack today. I know very few people that even use a "house phone."
If you have a monitored medical device such as the pacemaker/defibrillator that my husband has, you must have either a standard phone or cable phone. It does not support cell phones. voIP, or satellite phones.
So if I were building a house, I would put at least one.
In the last 2 places that I have lived in, there have been no phone jacks to be found. Most, if not ALL equipment (fax machines, phones) all expect the owner to operate off of the internet. The phone jack was so incredibly simple- just plug the thing in and you were "good to go". What has happened?
Depending on your perspective - going digital can be even easier. Just have something that support VoIP or Digital faxing and the only thing you need to look for is a power outlet. Or, you're bridging your old devices to the IP network and use the Internet. And personally - anyone that asks me to send a fax is going to get a double take from me. There are so many options out there for document transmission these days - it may be time to update your processes. I understand the "if it ain't broke..." notion. But there is also the cost and security consideration.
In essence, while it may be easy for the consumer, the infrastructure that supports analog lines are becoming more costly to maintain. Add to the fact that subscribers continue to decline. It becomes a costly service for phone companies to continue to provide. All the major carriers (Verizon and ATT) are looking to start phasing out analog (POTS) service starting in 2020. It may take them a few years to do that, but you'll likely see less and less devices that use analog communication.
If you have a monitored medical device such as the pacemaker/defibrillator that my husband has, you must have either a standard phone or cable phone. It does not support cell phones. voIP, or satellite phones.
I'm not sure why VOIP wouldn't work, as I have already mentioned you can hook it to existing lines to it. I even set up an old rotary dial phone on my parents Ooma unit, ring seems a little weak but it works.
One important point is you are going to want the modem, router and VOIP box on a UPS unless you have fully automatic generator. This really applies to anyone but obviously more important if you need it to work constantly for medical equipment. If it's absolutely critical monitoring service and do not have a generator then it may be an issue, that would assume the medical equipment has it's own power backup.
While on the topic a lot of modern phones require power themselves. Cordless units will only last as long as the battery and I'm pretty sure will fail to work at all if the base requires power. Make sure you have at least one corded phone that will continue to operate without power, easiest way to check is pull the plug. The one my parents have in their kitchen is modern phone, if it loses power you lose all the modern features like caller ID. It will still allow you to receive and make calls.
Nice to have cell phones and whatnot connected to the internet / cloud BUT......if the power goes out and cell towers don't work , you are SOL
without a land line - happened to my family waaaay back on 911 , I , however had installed my old fashioned hard line rotary phone in my kitchen because I thought it looked sooo cool with the color and patina lol it also had a real 50s' style ring
The internet is very reliable where I live, might not be as reliable as copper but nonetheless it's reliable. The issue is you need backup power for the modem and the router. As long as you have that it's comparable to copper. A small UPS could power a modem/router/VOIP box for hours.
If I were building a home, there's no way I'd run a traditional phone jack today. I know very few people that even use a "house phone."
I actually have a landline that I had installed. It's through the internet but I work from home enough that it's worth it for outgoing calls. I live in a populated suburban area but there are areas of my house that have so-so reception and if I want to walk around taking a call, I prefer that. Plus I find the handset preferrable to the iPhone for long conference calls, and haven't found a bluetooth device that I prefer yet.
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Nice to have cell phones and whatnot connected to the internet / cloud BUT......if the power goes out and cell towers don't work , you are SOL 
