Let’s talk about traditional phone lines, aka POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). This isn’t the most exciting topic, but it’s a fact that most companies still have some reliance on this longstanding technology.
According to the FCC, U.S. telecom companies can decommission outdated copper POTS lines. For context, about 35 million POTS lines exist today, and beginning in August 2022, carriers will no longer have to support these services. You can read the FCC Order 19–72A1 in more detail here.
Carriers have handling this in a multitude of ways. Some are moving forward with decommissioning services (ex. TPx). Some are raising pricing like crazy (ex. AT&T [see sample chart below from CA], CenturyLink, Zipply, Frontier). Some are selling their copper assets off (ex. Verizon).
Many may not have the time or resources to identify/implement the newer technologies necessary to avoid service interruption when these copper-based services are decommissioned by the Local Exchange Carriers. While digital voice service alternatives such as SIP and UCaaS have been available and trusted for years, the same cannot be said when it comes to key applications such as fire and security alarms, elevators, legacy fax machines, or even those pesky dial-up modems that may still be in place in your organization.
This is where QuantumShiftTM by vCom can help. We pride ourselves on our ability to curate a depth of options to meet your unique needs, and POTS solutions are no different. Solution providers have begun to establish turnkey Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions that allow you to maintain your legacy applications while also meeting key regulatory requirements including integrated battery backup. These solutions leverage purpose-built voice gateways that replicate required analog signaling, allowing you to use your existing analog devices and life safety services like the aforementioned fire, security, and elevator applications. What’s more, these solutions often include resiliency through redundant network paths including imbedded cellular/LTE backup!
Through QuantumShift’s subject matter experts and extensive vendor partnerships, we have multiple options available to provide you the power of choice. Together we can identify alternate solutions such as eFax, SIP, and UCaaS, as well as advanced POTS solutions, from vendors including AT&T, Comcast, and Granite as well as specialty vendors like MIX Networks. Our order management experts help coordinate implementation so you don’t have to. If you have limited visibility into your legacy analog services or you simply don’t have the time, resources, or budget to address the long-term requirements, we can still help by migrating your existing solutions under our management via billing conversion with your current provider without service interruption. Once this inventory is managed within vManager, we’ll be able to use the power of information to develop a long-term plan based on data.
Whether you wish to keep traditional POTS lines but need to reduce your cost, want to migrate to an LTE-enabled or VoIP Local Line technology, or need to arm your remote employees with an eFax solution, our subject matter experts are ready to help design a proactive plan that meets your short- and long-term requirements, giving you the time to manage your other priorities.
