On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 7:39 AM CAREY SCHUG via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Thank you, that is possibly a good idea.
Up to now I have resisted giving up my copper line:
1. to have multiple accesses that should not all be down at the same time 2. Because Comcast was much less reliable than the phone company 3. "prove you are not a computer" kind of offends me philosophically
by having the maximum rings before picking up, and a very long outgoing message, I haven't had to answer a robocall in months or years. My phone does announce who is calling, so for my friends, if I am actually home, I pick up immediately. Just recently, if it is any kind of anonymous and there is a possibility I want the call (e.g., I have a doctor's appointment the next day, so it may be a reminder), I may pick up and then hang up if it is a robocall.
Maybe it is time to give up the copper line. Recently cable has been down less than the phone company, and I do have my mobile phone as backup. And it is expensive.
Perhaps I should try adding a VOIP service, and unless get too irritated by it, then switch my historical phone number to it (34 years).
Greetings One possible advantage that a copper phone line has is that such is run on a separate power system (I believe its 48V and they have serious battery back up). This means that in a serious power outage it is possible to still have telephone access. Here we had an outage due to main line disruption and inside a lot too long a time cell phones didn't work and the internet was also down. (We are now on fiber optic internet and who knows the level of backup that is there.) HTH