There’s a reason they have trouble shifting merchandise… (Backstory, I’m a phone hoard… Ummm. . Collector) About 18 years ago, I tried to purchase an NOS Western Electric 5302 housing set from these guys. The 5302 is just a 1930’s/40s 302 dressed up to look like a 1950’s 500 set, it let the telcos use up surplus equipment and gave people the “new” designed telephone.
It took a half dozen e-mails with the guy and I had to send him a certified postal money order to pay. About a week later I got a long rambling, paranoid email accusing me of trying to scam him in some non-specific way, and he wasn’t going to send me my parts, This despite him having acknowledged receipt my money order. To this day I don’t have my parts. I still have the e-mail exchange saved… On my AOL account.
There is a good reason to have a dial-up phone, other than pure pigheaded ludditism. In 2004 we had 4 hurricanes pass through my locality within two months. We were without power for over two weeks. The only method of communication that worked, until they could get the cell towers back up, was my 1937 Western electric 302 and my Moss green (avocado to you heathens) Western Electric 500.
I’m also probably the last person in my neighborhood with an Honest-to-God landline. I don’t know what it is after it hits AT&T’s box, but up until that point it’s still good-old twisted pair. I really hope it pisses them off and costs them money. Letting the PSTN rot in the ground because you don’t want to keep it running is the worst sort of corporate BS.
We are also in a high hurricane-threat area, so if things get ugly, I’ll ride my bike or walk over to the aforementioned pizza/bar place, which will guaranteed be open and serving as a community hub, to make any crucial phone calls.
This thread makes me miss my red “presidential” push button phone, and my light-up handset from the 80s.
And yet one of the key excuses given by the industry to Ofcom about why we must move to VOIP was the expense of maintaining and running the copper network!
PS I did call Ofcom this morning and have asked for a written answer to my question: When there is an area-wide power cut for an extended period and the cell masts are not operating, how do I call the emergency services?
The first result I found on Google for this lists a few options. You would need to find one that’s also able to pick up rotary dial clicks and convert them into the right SIP commands. It would not be hard to make a Raspberry Pi do something like that, but maybe someone has already done it and you can find it. I’m going to do this myself if I get one of those rotary phones. If you’re being really cool, you could probably install the entire thing inside the phone, and power it by POE, and end up with a rotary phone that you plug your Ethernet into.
Edit: some more googling found a forum post that lists pulse-dial compatible analog telephone adapters. You can keep your rotary phone!
I suspect their argument is that this is an interim solution until they get enough fibre in the ground - and to people’s houses. But meantime they can decommission bits of the copper network where there is fibre and this will save them money that they can spend on fibre where it’s needed.
It seems like a plausible argument - logical even - so no doubt it bears no relationship with the facts, even if they did claim it.
ETA I assume our BT landline will get the same ‘solution’ - especially as we have no broadband contract with them.
