In most of the world, POTS lines from legacy phone services, commonly known as land lines, remain the primary form of connection to phone networks for both business and residential users. This is a voice grade telephone service dating back to the late 19th century. Although technology has brought many changes, they have capabilities that modern telephony like ISDN, cell phones, and VoIP do not.
This could be one of the main reasons why, despite the introduction of advanced telephony service, most offices and residents still maintain their POTS network. These provide a full duplex voice band channel where the human voice can travel in both directions at the same time. Other provisions are operator services such as conference calls, subscriber dialing and call-in-progress tones. These form the fundamentals of any telephone service.
In addition, those with a fixed telephone network today can request broadband service if they need their computer systems to work faster. In this case, POTS will act as the base for the new service as one can now connect to the provider through the existing phone line. Once you add broadband, your business uses the same cable network for phone and Internet.
It is also good to keep in mind that the lines of old telephone services are very consistent compared to modern telephony. This ensures that your business does not have irregular outages at any time of the day. This is a common problem with recently introduced technologies such as cell phones and voice over Internet protocol.
Users should keep in mind that both cell phones and VoIP are highly affected by weather changes. Other interruptions in this type of telephone communications include problems with the location of cell towers, satellite positions, and even power outages. On the other hand, POTs are very stable as they won’t even need power to work, especially if they are used for calls only.
Another benefit of using landlines is that in the event of an emergency where people need to contact 911, the operator can easily tell where you are coming from. This way, the caller can receive immediate help. However, this is not the case with most types of VoIP or GSM phones. With VoIP, the ability to instantly trace a caller will depend on the service provider. Using GPS tracking for cell phones without the service is through cell tower triangulation, which can be time consuming. This means that one will not receive timely assistance from 911.
No special instructions are required to operate the POTS equipment. Most of its features are basic and familiar to most people who have made calls before. This means that a business will not spend resources training employees on how to operate it. However, this is not the case for modern communication systems. Some cell systems may require special training for people to operate them.
The above are some of the benefits of using the POTS lines of old phone services. Since this can also be easily integrated with new technologies, it is vital to keep it alongside advanced communication systems. One does not have to do away with this type of network completely. It can save your business a great deal of money and time, especially during an emergency.