Why is your landline phone dead?

Our fancy new Internet-based home or office phones are the communication tool of the future – cheap, efficient and versatile.

They’re also, in a power outage, about as useful as a brick.

All over the Bay Area, residents who rely on these digital landline phones are feeling angry and betrayed during PGE’s shutdown, unable to get even a simple dial tone.

Those with old analog phones on quaint copper lines are, in general, doing just fine.

But the growing number of consumers with new digital Voice over IP (VOIP) systems, which use the Internet to make calls, are finding them maddeningly unreliable.

No power means no Internet. And no phone. Ironically, the only way to fix your high-tech phone is to buy a low-tech backup power source, like a battery or generator.

With no working landline, Internet or cell service, Charlotte Gibb of Lafayette drove to a high hill on Sunday night to get a cell signal and watch a frightening blaze that had erupted on nearby Acalanes Ridge.

“What was terrifying is that no one in our neighborhood would be alerted to evacuate,” she said. “All I could do was look for the tell-tale sign of fire — a red glow.”

In the high-tech Bay Area, the old system – dubbed POTS, for “Plain Old Telephone Service” – doesn’t get much respect.

For consumers, it’s expensive. The phone is a relic, stuck into a jack in the wall and cluttering a room. Sure, it gets great reception. But it rarely rings, and even when it does, it’s usually the dentist, a robocaller or someone wanting to sell you life insurance.

VOIP, in contrast, is cheap. Plans are flexible, so you can customize and change them over time. It’s easy to add new features. The phone service offers video calls and other features.

The VOIP-based phones are supported by fiber networks that use light instead of electricity. This allows for much faster data transmission, broader bandwidth, quicker access to cloud-based services and better support of streaming video.

The traditional landline system is especially unpopular with the telecom industry, because its aging infrastructure is bothersome to keep up. The industry dreams of the day when it is abandoned, and they can invest instead in  technologies like 5G and fiber optic cables.

They also prefer VOIP for financial reasons.  It isn’t regulated like traditional phones, so there’s no obligation to guarantee universal access and fair prices to consumers, according to the nonprofits Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Utility Reform Network.

AT&T, Verizon and other companies are pushing consumers hard to get them to shift away from this service. In 2012, after Hurricane Sandy destroyed much of the copper infrastructure in western Fire Island, N.Y., Verizon didn’t want to fix the phone lines. Instead, it proposed replacing them with Voice Link, a substitute that connects to the cellular network, according to the New York Times. In Pennsylvania, Verizon was fined for refusing to repair an elderly couple’s copper phone lines.

To convince consumers to switch, the telecom industry often offers “Triple Play” packages of services, like television with internet and phone, and other incentives.

“They should have to make a point of informing you of this when they talk you into changing,” said Candy Promes, who switched to a VOIP phone, then was frustrated when she lost service.

But in emergencies, the traditional system is a robust and fairly bulletproof way to deliver phone calls. No bells, no whistles. They just work.

That’s because the lines carries their own power.  This power – low voltage, posing no risk – comes from the company’s central office.  And that’s backed up by a generator.

“When power goes out, those generators are powered by diesel. And there is enough fuel to last several days,” said Regina Costa, telecom policy director of TURN. “And they’re in locations where it’s easy to refill.”

Old-fashioned landlines go down only when they’re served by a longer line in a rural area that depends on the phone company’s remote “terminal.” That terminal is supposed to have backup power, but many don’t.

That’s what is happening in the the Santa Cruz Mountains, where customers of Frontier Communications are without service.

When commercial power is shut off, the remote terminals remain in service until batteries are depleted,” said Javier Mendoza of Frontier. “When utility power is restored, disrupted Frontier services should also restore soon after.”

In contrast, VOIP phone services that are delivered using Internet technology over fiber optic lines require commercial power to operate.  You need to plug in your modem, router or other hardware for it to work.

There is nothing wrong with the VOIP system, said Ernesto Falcon, Senior Legislative Counsel with the
Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“The transition is happening,” he said.  “That’s just where the technology is going.”

The problem, said Falcon and Costa, is that phone companies aren’t required to provide batteries or other backup. This is confusing to consumers; different phones have different batteries, costing from $20 to $35, plus shipping. Batteries age, and fail. Where should these batteries live? In the garage? Near the phone jack? No one knows.

“It is a very dicey situation,” said Costa.

On January 1, an old law will expire and the California Public Utilities Commission has the opportunity to mandate power backup, he said.

“It is a matter of public safety,” he said. “The old copper phone line has had a long history of these protections. We need the same for the new technologies.”