Did you know?  That the National Regulatory Research Institute recently reported that 41 states have reduced or even eliminated their oversight of plain old telephone service (POTS)?  And 62 Million businesses have transitioned from POTS to VoIP in their business model, according to the FCC.

Surprisingly, 24% of businesses are still relying on POTS solutions to run their business communications, despite the fact that the service can not provide next-generation device and data services, leaving them at a distinct disadvantage against their competitors.  With costs rising by as much as 5x in the last two years in California to maintain the POTS connection, if you haven’t already begun to evaluate alternative solutions to the plain old telephony service we have relied on for generations, then you need to start now.

POTS: Out With the Old; Digital: In With the New   

There are many reasons why you are avoiding replacing your POTS connections that only you know.  We can only guess – and the majority of the things we have heard and seen indicate the following two objections to transitioning from POTS to Digital solutions such as VoIP:

Reliance on dated technology such as fax machines, elevator alarms, and burglar alarms.  This is especially true for highly regulated industries such as the medical field, assisted living homes, and pharmacies who are required by law to use fax to share information between different locations.

Significant expense required to replace outdated POTS solutions.  Even with the rising costs of getting dial tone delivered, the full replacement costs of systems that you have already invested thousands, if not millions of dollars, into can make a full rip and replace solution cost-prohibitive.

If this sounds like you, then you’ll want to keep reading.

Three Reasons to Replace POTS Lines Now

Did you know that the average cost to a business of a network outage event is $300,000 per hour?  The copper lines that connect our POTS solutions are degrading, and providers no longer have to maintain this infrastructure – meaning the longer you wait, the more likely you are to experience a disruption to your service.  Don’t wait until transitioning is a must.  Do your research now to find the right provider for your business needs.

• Reduced FCC fees in addition to lower subscription costs. As regulations are reduced on the maintenance of POTS lines, this will lead to higher subscription costs for those who continue to use this aging infrastructure.  These fees from the FCC cover the costs incurred to maintain and regulate the copper lines.  As more users drop POTS and move to digital or mobile communications solutions, the subscription cost will continue to rise for those who continue with analog voice connections.  On the flip side, switching to VoIP or LTE can have immediate cost savings.  To start, VoIP can run over your existing internet connection, on top of the savings you will see by having reduced regulatory fees.

• Escape the physical constraints of POTS and increase agility. Copper POTS lines worked by having one direct connection from your phone to the LEC.  While this aided in providing the reliability of the connection, it meant that in order to receive the call, you had to be in the physical presence of the endpoint assigned to that number.  Call forwarding was available, but not easy and required specific skills to achieve.  But with digital IP solutions, this process can be achieved with one-click through a user portal – or even by just relocating the endpoint.  Furthermore, you can connect to your number through softphones on a computer or laptop or a mobile application for your cellphone or tablet.  By replacing your POTS line with a digital or LTE connection, you will immediately reduce the physical limitations of your telephony solution while simultaneously increasing your agility.

• Enhanced Business Continuity.  We have to give POTS accolades for just how reliable the solution was and for how long it was able to achieve this reliability.  FCC regulations on the telephony industry required the telephony carriers to absorb the cost of the maintenance and repair to ensure the continuity of the network.  But even so, as the network aged, so did the copper lines that were the center of the connection, resulting in more frequent outages and disruptions in service.  But as technology changed, and VoIP and digital solutions grew in both popularity and reliability, the tide shifted.  Now, due to the built in geographic redundancy and failover capabilities of the digital technologies, now VoIP is even more reliable.  If one data center is hit with an outage or significant weather event and goes down, another is primed and ready to cover the traffic in the interim, seamlessly.  Done right, the only one who would notice the switch is the network operator

The Solution for POTS Line Replacement

Is simple.  So simple, in fact, that you will wonder why you didn’t think of it already.  The answer?  POTS Line Replacement with POTS IN A BOX ®.

Say what?  The POTS IN A BOX ® is a wireless solution built to bridge the gap between your analog needs and the digital communication lines.  POTS IN A BOX® is an LTE/Cellular/Wi-Fi/PSTN/FirstNet-capable router that can enable many combinations of legacy analog wireline in-band Voice, M2M, Data, DTMF, Analog Data Modem Tones, Fax and Alarm System Signals. These functions – which were historically supported by POTS Lines – can now be delivered via POTS IN A BOX® and carried over LAN or WAN internet connections such as fiber optics or cable connections.  Now you can keep the systems and devices you have invested in so thoroughly over the past years and still enter into the digital era, all by plugging in one simple device to bridge the digital divide.  Contact us today to see how you can begin the process of POTS Line Replacement and move your communications to fiber or cable solutions.

Keep Reading:

• Solutions for POTS Line Replacement
• The Future of Fax and Alarm Technology
• Death of the Dial Tone as We Know It