Funny phones came up. My girlfriend told me yesterday she wanted one of those cool old phones with the wheel that spins. I'm like a rotary phone? I laughed that she didn't even know what they were called and then again at her telling me I was wrong when I stated they don't even work on the current system even if you got one.
You can receive calls on them but that's about it. Some VOIP systems do know how to interpret the pulses, but most don't.
Rummaging around in my workshop the other day I came across a box with several of my old us robotics 56k modems and realized that I have not had a landline in nearly 20 years.
Mine got trashed quite some time ago. Crazy how things have changed from the days of using those!
Crazy how unimaginable an existence without a phone line was. It was a given of existence.
Makes me wonder just which "must always exist" elements of today's society are next to fall. If it were not for the desire of man to turn everything into a bomb to destroy opposing viewpoints I'd bet money on powerlines. Household RTGs are doable nearterm. Think about it -- aside from the aesthetic improvement there would never need to be the power loss due to hurricanes or ice storms again.
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