With modern technology progressing and the high cost of maintaining copper lines, these traditional land lines are becoming less and less common among consumers.

Many major carriers have decided to shut off copper POTS lines in an effort to eliminate copper POTS lines by 2020. Service fees have been steadily increasing over the years, and some services have been terminated. According to the FCC, there are still more than 36 million POTS lines in the United States and the average cost for a line is $65 per month.

However, many POTS lines are still in use for numerous reasons:

• They provide access to 911 emergency services for elevators, fire panels, alarm systems, gate directories etc.

• They are used in most businesses as modems, fax, out of band management applications and phones.

We have customers across the area who have already been impacted by the use of digital phone service to devices designed for analog service. How many residents actually have land lines for local service? Today, most people utilize a cellular phone that rarely has a local prefix because people keep their same number even when moving out of the area. With most existing phone services the association is paying for local and long distance service at the TES.

Thankfully, today there are multiple options to consider. Depending on what equipment you have those options vary. Most of these solutions solve more than one of these issues. There are proprietary options compatible with certain equipment, cellular devices, conversion appliances as well as internet-based systems with cloud management.