GoKawiilLandline phones now seem like ancient technology. As the precursor to today's iPhones and foldable smartphones, they were once a staple in every household. But they are still useful today, especially in the event of a massive mobile network outage.
Outages can leave you stranded without one of your most critical lines of access to the world for hours if you're reliant only on a cellphone. And if your smartphone can't make phone calls, it's not much good in an emergency.
You might reconsider the role of this home device, once standard issue but now nearly obsolete. Here's what to think about when deciding whether to keep (or get) a landline.
Remember the landline?
Those old-fashioned landlines may still have a place, but only 28% of American households have one. Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
Landlines are telephones that connect to specialized wiring in our homes. The iconic image is that of a rotary-dial phone -- usually rented from the phone company -- that either hung on the wall or sat on a counter or table, though push-button and later cordless landlines replaced many of those oldsters in the 1980s. Landline phones connect through a global communication network that was built over more than a century. But as cellphones became broadly available and affordable, many people chose to drop their landlines altogether.
A 2022 survey by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that only about 29% of US adults lived in a house with a landline phone, down from more than 90% in 2004. The crossover happened over 10 years ago, in 2015, when smartphone sales entered a boom period that reshaped the tech industry and helped turn iPhone maker Apple into one of the world's most highly valued companies.
Ann Williams is one of the folks who hasn't given up on their landlines yet. When asked why she keeps hers around, she describes moving to Huntsville, Alabama, after a tornado outbreak on April 27, 2011, when dozens of twisters killed at least 250 people and knocked out power for days. Although she moved there after the tornadoes, hearing about the event brought home to her the importance of always needing a phone connection.
"The weather here is so unpredictable," she told me in an interview. But landlines have dedicated power and often work even in an outage. "We remember a day when it was absolutely necessary to have (the landline)," Williams said.
What makes landline phones more reliable
... continue reading