On Monday, May 25, 2015 at 9:13:37 AM UTC-4, Art Todesco wrote:

I forgot one thing, someday maybe, the telcos might go the way of cable,
etc. and have only digital coming to you house on the copper pair, like
DSL or Uverse.

IDK what you mean here. The Telcos have been offering DSL, which is
digital, for two decades. That era is winding down, for the most part
as they move to better technologies for most customers.


A box at your house would strip off the telephone bits
and provide an analog line for "old fashioned" phones.

That's how the Telcos have been doing DSL. Many carriers are
way beyond that, at least in some areas. Verizon FIOS for example,
is fiber into your house. Cablevision here provides VOIP service,
where they give you a cable/modem/router that converts to the
analog interface for your phones.


Or maybe we could
use digital phones! Probably not as phones seem to be going wireless. I
just hate talking on these when you have to keep saying "you just
dropped out, repeat!" and "no it's not me it must be you". Who know what
the future will bring. Back in the 70s, no one would accept the
relatively poor quality of today's cell phones, but we do. Or was that
the old AT&T speaking!!!

Your experience with cell phones is a lot different than mine.
I've had Verizon for a long time and then Virgin Mobile which
rides on Sprint for the last year. I really don't have a problem
with poor call quality. Verizon is better, but Sprint is close.
It all depends where you use them, what the coverage is. Here
in NJ, those work fine for me. If I go into some rural or mountain
area, like snowboarding in Vermont, then yes, there I have had
areas with dropped calls, poor coverage, etc.