What is a POTS line?

A POTS line gets its name from the acronym for “Plain Old Telephone Service”. Prior to the 1970′s, POTS was the ONLY type of service you could get for voice communication. But, when the emergence of T-1, TDM (Time Division Multiplexing), Satellite, ISDN, Fibre, WATS, VOIP, and others, offered us other voice alternatives, this acronym was used by the industry to specify standard loop-start telephone service delivered via copper wire.

While the proliferation of POTS service is beginning to shrink in the past decade, it is still widely in use. It is a very versatile and generally accepted standard that makes it compatible with modems, alarms, faxes, cordless phones, and other devices which require dial-out or dial-in service.

But, the POTS pricing model is no longer competitive. The major phone companies (i.e ATT, Verizon, Quest) can’t afford to charge any less than they do now because the aging copper wire system is maintenance intensive and not very profitable.  In fact, if you keep up with telecom news you'll notice the trend of the major providers (AT&T, Verizon) getting out of the land line business.  Why just recently, AT&T announced that it was selling it's Connecticut wireline business to Frontier Communications.

ALternatively, VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is replacing many POTS lines now. It offers all the same features of POTS, plus many other features such as conferencing, forwarding, Caller ID and Long Distance which are all included in one flat price. VOIP is often 30-50% cheaper than POTS service when you consider the Long Distance charges. And furthermore, VOIP has matured to the point where it is just as reliable as POTS and delivers better sound quality (wider frequency spectrum which carries the lower and higher voice tones).