POTS lines, or Plain Old Telephone Service lines, were historically the cornerstone of voice communication. These copper wires have been in use for years, manually transmitting voice signals between callers. In the early 2000s, our reliance on POTS lines steeply declined with the rise of cell phones and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), and on August 2, 2022 the FCC’s mandate to allow carriers to officially stop supporting POTS effectively marked the “death” of traditional landlines in many areas.
What does this mean for blue light phone towers? Many legacy blue light phone towers still use POTS lines, meaning that they are reliant on an aging copper telephone network, which is becoming increasingly expensive to maintain and prone to service failures. Let’s dive into the multifaceted reasons for POTS line replacement with modern technology for your blue light phone tower.
Reducing Costs with POTS Line Replacement
If you’ve noticed the cost of your POTS lines increasing, you are not alone. POTS lines are rapidly becoming exponentially more expensive to maintain for a number of reasons. The lines rely on old copper wiring, which is costly to repair. Many of these copper networks are decades old and prone to weather damage, corrosion, and theft. Without a requirement in place to support POTS lines, carriers are hiking up their monthly cost in an attempt to push businesses and municipalities towards more cost-effective and scalable modern solutions.
For blue light phone towers, the rising cost of POTS lines is becoming a major financial burden. As carriers increase prices to push companies away from outdated copper networks, maintaining these lines is becoming significantly more expensive. Safety shouldn’t have to be subject to such high markups, which is why switching to modern alternatives has become a necessity.
Increasing Reliability with POTS Line Replacement
POTS lines have a number of inherent issues that make them less reliable than modern alternatives. After their deregulation, telecom companies were no longer required to maintain or repair them, meaning that when issues arise, repairs can be significantly delayed and deprioritized. In tandem, many technicians who specialize in POTS lines have retired and carriers simply aren’t training new ones. Some areas have seen POTS lines fail completely without repair options, which can wreak havoc on the critical systems that still rely on them, such as emergency blue light phones, fire alarms, elevators, and security systems. Without a functioning line, these essential services may be unable to connect to emergency responders, posing serious safety risks.
Another issue with standard POTS lines is that they do not have built-in digital monitoring capabilities. Unlike modern solutions such as VoIP, LTE, and fiber, POTS lines are unable to provide real-time diagnostics to alert users of failures. The only way to check if a POTS line is working is with manual testing, meaning companies must physically send staff to each location to verify functionality. This issue causes increased maintenance costs and delayed resolution.
For blue light phone towers, reliability is non-negotiable. POTS lines are failing to support emergency communications and can cause serious safety risks if a line isn’t working properly when an individual tries to make an emergency call. With decreased reliability and a lack of remote monitoring capabilities, failures can go undetected for weeks or months, leaving critical emergency infrastructure unreliable when it’s needed most.
Solutions for Legacy Blue Light Phone Towers: How to Make the Switch
With the many challenges of maintaining existing POTS lines for blue light phone towers, companies are switching to more cost-effective and reliable alternatives. The Talkaphone team is proud to provide one of said solutions, the Voice Over LTE VoLTE Retrofit Kit. Bridging legacy and future, the retrofit kit converts legacy wired landline Blue Light Phone Towers into fully functional, 4G LTE cellular voice-enabled devices. Maximizing your existing investment in your Blue Light Phone Towers while integrating a simple retrofit kit is the most cost-effective way to maintain safe, reliable emergency communication.
The kit includes multiple components, including our ETP-520 Series Analog Call Station, a 4G Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) Cellular Gateway, and an antenna with 17-foot cable assembly. With purchase also comes a two-year prepaid AT&T SIM card with Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) service and a 2-year subscription for cellular gateway cloud monitoring and email alerting. You can feel confident in its reliability with the included phone number failover feature, physical location identification capability, and cellular gateway cloud monitoring & email status alerts.
At Talkaphone, we are proud to provide leading solutions that increase safety for individuals in times of need. Our Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) Retrofit Kit allows Blue Light Phone Towers—both our own and those from other manufacturers—to seamlessly transition from outdated POTS lines to modern, reliable LTE networks. This upgrade ensures continuous, high-quality emergency communication while reducing costs and maintenance challenges. If you’d like to explore the benefits and specifications of our retrofit kits, we invite you to do so. If you have questions about POTS line replacement and how this will fit in with your existing blue light phone tower system we invite you to reach out.
