Analog phone lines

Analog phone lines, also referred to as regular, POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) lines use a single open channel (also known as pipe) between the two communicating parties. This physical connection between the two parties then cannot be used by any other person or for any other purpose. In this way further lines need to be installed to ensure additional services like fax support or to build a home office.

What is an analog line?

Analog lines are still the most common used lines today for regular phones services. Usually, these are the lines that are provided by phone companies. They carry analog data (Figure 1).

analog phone line
Figure 1 - Analog phone line

Pros:

However there are new technologies that offer more features and development than these traditional phone lines especially in regard to speed and bandwidth, analog phone lines are still quite popular. This popularity derives from that analog phone lines are still very reliable and do not depend on power outage and similar factors, moreover they can provide quite high speech quality. In lot of places, home Internet users cannot have a DSL line without a landline phone line. In this way analog lines can survive latest technologies. Furthermore, calling emergency services is still the most reliable with analog lines because of the above mentioned. Therefore people and businesses often decide to keep their traditional phone lines beside other used lines just for safety.

Cons:

In regards to speed and bandwidth analog phone lines are far left behind by latest technologies. These developed methods offer more features and services that can be more important for businesses than the features of analog lines. Or as it was mentioned above they often keep their analog lines to be ready for all cases.

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