America Gave Up on the Best Home Technology There Is • Hacker News Board

Re: America Gave Up on the Best Home Technology There Is

#21

Post by rekabis » Tue, Sep 12, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

silisili wrote: post #17

mixmastamyk wrote: post #12

I’ve thought about getting a home phone again. Ready to give up my old mobile and tired of tracking. But a lot of things in life require a phone number, even if many of those times it should not.

Why not a burner prepaid dumbphone? Battery lasts forever, cheap, and while there is still some modicum of tracking, it's nothing like the firehoses that are smartphones..

Dumbphones are rare AF these days. Even most flip phones have Android under the hood, which is even more privacy-eviscerating than Apple.

And while there are alternative OS options out there, most of them are “fat” operating systems that haven’t received the scrutiny of the two elephants in the room, leaving them to be even more questionable than a known variable.

Re: America Gave Up on the Best Home Technology There Is

#22

Post by I_Am_Nous » Tue, Sep 12, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

This is mentioned in the article, that home phone service is not even delivered by old copper wires anymore, but that's a good thing. Yes, it adds layers of complexity to provide phone over fiber (since now the fiber is pulling double/triple duty to give internet, phone, and cable) but not having to maintain separate physical plants is nice.

We have areas we provide DSL and phone service to which were underwater for months during the [0] 2019 Midwest US Floods. There are places where the buried lines are still fine for phone, but don't have nearly the signal resolution to handle even 5/1 DSL speeds. In those cases we switch customers to wireless supplied internet.

We have further areas where telephone pedestals are filled with 60 year old wires, which means the buried lines are likewise that old and can't offer much for speeds...it will be interesting to see what the true lifespan of fiber is because if you can build your plant out with fiber now, you won't need to bury anything new later on down the line. You just upgrade the boxes on the end of the fibers to something newer, hotter, with whatever technology replaces the distribution PON your current boxes run.

I also wonder how much value is left in abandoned, buried phone lines and if it would ever make sense to reclaim it at scale.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Midwestern_U.S._floods

Re: America Gave Up on the Best Home Technology There Is

#23

Post by nitwit005 » Tue, Sep 12, 2023, 10:22 PM UTC

Anyone who still had a land line probably unplugged it during the recent epidemics of spam calls, unless their phone had a way to mute it at night.

For what it's worth, my mobile service has stayed up during the last three power outages here.

Re: America Gave Up on the Best Home Technology There Is

#24

Post by tuatoru » Wed, Sep 13, 2023, 4:05 AM UTC

happytiger wrote: post #15

The best home technology is insulation. One time install. Saves the planet. Saves money. No maintenance. Landlines aren’t missed.

The best home technology is a (laundry) washing machine. You have no idea what life is like without one.

Re: America Gave Up on the Best Home Technology There Is

#25

Post by jfengel » Wed, Sep 13, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

1MachineElf wrote: post #4

While weathering hurricanes in Florida, self-powered landlines were a reliable means of communication, even during a neighborhood power outage. It's sad to see these go.

Sounds like Florida buried its landline wires. Good choice.

I used to regularly lose landline service after storms (further north on the East Coast). For a while, I had both a landline and a cell phone, and found myself with the oddity of calling the phone company on my cell phone to tell them that my phone didn't work.

(I still technically have a land line. It comes free with the fiber optic data line. But there are no phones connected to it. At one point I discovered that it had been down for months, and didn't care.)

Re: America Gave Up on the Best Home Technology There Is

#26

Post by happytiger » Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

tuatoru wrote: post #24

happytiger wrote: post #15

The best home technology is insulation. One time install. Saves the planet. Saves money. No maintenance. Landlines aren’t missed.

The best home technology is a (laundry) washing machine. You have no idea what life is like without one.

Unfortunately I do. But you make a deeply compelling argument.