The constant attempts/threats/path toward removing landlines can be quite troubling. I know rants are discouraged. So, please don't read the below as overly ranty; it's just an attempt to detail and characterize some concerns, really.
If power or internet goes out, wired VOIP phones won't work. Both the power and the internet have way worse reliability than the copper wire telephone where I live in a top 1% part of California.
If cell phone service goes out (or if cell phone batteries get exhausted and can't be recharged), then mobile phones won't work.
A landline is a very, very reasonable "emergency line" or even "regular line". The data and power connection to it will not be unexpectedly severed, for the most part.
I can very easily imagine an "extended outage" for whatever reason of power, internet, and/or mobile phone service, take your pick. In any of these cases, I would expect to basically be able to use the landline phone to call a relative, friend or co-worker pretty much anywhere in the world. Ok, maybe some disasters take out copper wire telephones, or maybe sometimes copper wire telephones have issues (rare but possible), but this is still a pretty good backup/emergency/constant connection.
If you really have got your sh* together, you have a landline, IMO.
There is a copper contact running all the way to some box, and to some substation, which has utility-managed diesel backup generators and switching and all that jazz. I don't care if it's digital and so forth behind the scenes. It's managed! It works from their system to mine, end of story.
We have a residential elevator. It has a phone line for emergencies, like if you get stuck in the elevator by yourself. That goes to a copper wire telephone wire. I do NOT want to rely on the unreliable California power utility to not have a scheduled or unscheduled outage, causing the elevator fail, and also shutting off power to a cable box powering some VOIP service. Really?
Sure, I could add backup batteries. Sure, I could add automatic diesel power generators. But, the phone company already has those! Do I need a secondary and/or tertiary ISP as backup as well, and somehow join them together? (Some will say, "yes, of course".)
What are they going to do next, ban standard incandescent light bulbs? Oh, wait, they already did that! Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison must be spinning in their graves!
I get the idea is to cut costs or something, but I think this is a safety issue, no?
If we can't have real light bulbs, and we can't have real telephones lines, is there a name for that? We used to have more or less "additive" technologies. A new one would go add to the list of available technologies, not really fully replacing any. Just adding to the list of what you can readily have/do. But this concept of "removing" solid technologies for arguably "worse" ones--I think it's not merely enshittification. This seems like a whole 'nother branch of weird.
Maybe there's some state that will reverse some of this stuff; one can hope, can't one?
If you use one or more copper lines: what is your plan for the post-telephone-line world, if it comes to it?
> If power or internet goes out, wired VOIP phones won't work. Both the power and the internet have way worse reliability than the copper wire telephone
That’s nothing inherent to phone lines, though.
Nothing prevents regulators from mandating fiber or cable providers to offer backup batteries as part of their ONTs and CPEs as well as fiber nodes.
Yes, it would be more expensive than not doing it, but maintaining a completely separate last-mile communications medium is not free either.
Maintaining all these generators, batteries etc. is probably at least as expensive, especially given that you can only charge so much for a landline these days, especially if you’re competing against voice over IP or cable that’s effectively free in terms of infrastructure.
If redundancy is a concern, mobile phone networks are probably much more economical except maybe in very sparsely populated areas, and provide coverage for road accidents as well.
> If we can't have real light bulbs, and we can't have real telephones lines, is there a name for that?
I'd call one an actual safety concern (if no alternative is available) and the other nostalgia.
If any of Thomas Edison's peers could've made 2024 era white LEDs, nobody would have bothered with incandescent.
Even in the 1980s and 1990s when I was a kid, having half a dozen 100 watt bulbs on around the house would have been a significant fraction of the overall electricity bill.
The first time I got an LED based bike light, I finally found that I could get oncoming cars to dip their full-beams instead of dazzling me when they went past.
> We used to have more or less "additive" technologies. A new one would go add to the list of available technologies, not really fully replacing any.
> If power or internet goes out, wired VOIP phones won't work. Both the power and the internet have way worse reliability than the copper wire telephone where I live in a top 1% part of California.
It doesn't quite contradict what you said, but I live in distinctly non-top-1% part of Vermont where power is not very reliable. One of the line workers I talked to affectionately described the local distribution system as "fence wire on tall posts". It runs through the woods and frequently gets taken out by falling trees. On the plus side, it's easy to repair with one well-trained person on an ATV.
Anyway, our area recently got fiber internet installed. In a recent power outage, I was surprised to learn that the optional VOIP phone service installed along with the internet kept working. There's an on-site battery backup for each ONT (terminal at the house). So while it's true that if internet goes out you lose VOIP phone, the fiber cable is pretty durable and the phone connection is a lot more resilient to short power outages than I would have thought.
When I lived in a rural area, cell service was as reliable as landlines if not more. People frequently crashed into utility poles and brought landline service down. Cell towers have backup power and can work during outages. Personally I have an electric car which could charge my phone thousands of times in a power outage situation; of course even a gasoline powered car can charge a phone too in a pinch. The biggest problem with cell service during an emergency is congestion, but landlines are not immune to this either with the way networks are built today.
In the future, home batteries and solar are going to be much more common. And soon your cell phone will be able to go directly to space, bypassing any local tower problem, using Starlink's direct-to-cell feature. Reliability can be designed into modern systems and we don't need to cling to costly and wasteful outdated technologies like copper landlines simply because they used to be reliable.
It's funny, but in my neighborhood, if there is any power fluctuation (literally 1 second power outages) you can expect a 30-40 minutes outage of Cable internet.
Ha, I always thought it was weird that Atherton didn't have sidewalks but I didn't know it was prohibited by law.
I guess it kind of makes sense in a way, though. The thing about Atherton is the lot sizes are enormous, so even if they did have sidewalks it wouldn't make sense to walk anywhere. It would take forever just to walk three houses down the street and you'd just be walking past a giant wall or hedge with nothing to look at. Sidewalks would be wasted.
One of the primary reasons some communities view sidewalks negatively is due to the desire to maintain a certain aesthetic or character. For example, in suburban neighborhoods developed post-World War II, the absence of sidewalks was intended to convey a "high-class" non-urban image by discouraging walking, aiming to preserve a rural or non-urban feel . This perspective is still found in communities where residents oppose sidewalks to retain the "country" or "rural" ambiance of their neighborhoods, equating sidewalks with urbanization and a loss of their neighborhood's character. (https://ggwash.org/view/37058/ask-ggw-is-there-any-reason-no...)
Economic factors also play a significant role. Sidewalk construction and maintenance can be costly, with prices ranging significantly based on the location, materials, and additional features like reflective paint, countdown clocks at intersections, benches, and trash cans needed to comply with safety and accessibility standards . (https://housenotebook.com/why-do-some-neighborhoods-have-no-...)
Atherton, California, is known for its strict zoning regulations, a characteristic that is deeply intertwined with the town's unique characteristics and the values of its community. Here's why these regulations are particularly strict:
Preservation of Community Character: Atherton is a community that prides itself on its distinct suburban and residential character, characterized by spacious lots, lush greenery, and a tranquil atmosphere. The strict zoning regulations help preserve this character by controlling development density, ensuring that the town maintains its spacious and green aesthetic. This includes restrictions on how much of a lot can be built upon (lot coverage) and how close buildings can be to property lines (setbacks).
Privacy and Exclusivity: Many residents of Atherton value privacy and exclusivity, which are facilitated by large lot sizes and regulations that limit the proximity of homes. These regulations help maintain the sense of seclusion and private space that is prized in the community.
Property Values: Strict zoning regulations can also protect property values. By maintaining the town's exclusive and upscale character, these regulations help ensure that properties in Atherton remain highly desirable and valuable.
Environmental Protection: Atherton is home to many trees and natural landscapes that contribute to its appeal. Strict zoning regulations help protect these natural resources, ensuring that development does not compromise the town's environmental quality. This includes preserving open spaces and ensuring that new constructions or modifications respect the existing natural landscape.
Community Input: The residents of Atherton have a significant say in the town's zoning and development policies. The strict regulations reflect not just the desires of the town's government but also the collective preferences of its residents, who are often involved in the planning process through public hearings and community meetings. This community involvement ensures that the regulations align with the residents' vision for their town.
Adherence to the General Plan: Like many municipalities, Atherton's zoning regulations are designed to be consistent with its General Plan, a comprehensive document that outlines the town's vision for growth and development. The strict zoning regulations are a tool to implement this vision, guiding development in a way that aligns with the community's goals for the future.
The combination of preserving the town's character, ensuring privacy, protecting property values, conserving the environment, and incorporating community input all contribute to the strictness of Atherton's zoning regulations. These rules are a reflection of the town's priorities and the collective vision of its residents, aimed at maintaining the quality of life and the distinctive identity of Atherton.
> I do NOT want to rely on the unreliable California power utility to not have a scheduled or unscheduled outage, causing the elevator fail, and also shutting off power to a cable box powering some VOIP service. Really?
To be fair, how about fixing the actual disease (insane policies in commiefornia) rather than some minor symptom fixes?
> Sure, I could add backup batteries. Sure, I could add automatic diesel power generators. But, the phone company already has those! Do I need a secondary and/or tertiary ISP as backup as well, and somehow join them together? (Some will say, "yes, of course".)
Curious, why not advocate for the power company to provide battery backup at the substations? Why should the only part of our infrastructure that's battery backed be the phone system?
> What are they going to do next, ban standard incandescent light bulbs? Oh, wait, they already did that! Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison must be spinning in their graves!
> I get the idea is to cut costs or something, but I think this is a safety issue, no?
> If we can't have real light bulbs, and we can't have real telephones lines, is there a name for that?
I'm really curious to why you view incandescent light-bulbs as being superior to LEDs. Is it solely because they are simpler? They certainly don't last as long and cost more to operate. LED bulbs have the same warm glow and are indistinguishable from incandescent. Perhaps you are using them to heat your room? If so, a resistive heater could accomplish the same job (without lighting up the area).
> If you use one or more copper lines: what is your plan for the post-telephone-line world, if it comes to it?
Batteries everywhere. Ideally every utility would have a mandate to use battery backups covering common outage times.
> why you view incandescent light-bulbs as being superior to LEDs. Is it solely because they are simpler? They certainly don't last as long and cost more to operate.
I've gotten in the habit of writing down the in-service date on all of my LED bulbs, because I don't think I've gotten more than two years out of any of them. Granted, still longer than incandescent bulbs, but I feel like the 10+ year lifespan I've been sold is a lie. Supposedly LED bulbs are a lot more sensitive to fluctuations in power quality (and it's not like I've been buying AliExpress bulbs, either).
In either case, why a federal ban on incandescent bulbs? If LED bulbs are superior, the market will sort itself out. If it's really a market failure (which I don't think it is in this case), put an excise tax on incandescent bulbs to tip the scale in LED's favor. To ban it outright is just rude.
An incandescent ban is the only thing that is going to keep people like my parents from using them.
My father does not understand efficiency at this point in his life.
"Why would I pay two dollars for a new LED light bulb, when I can get four of the regular ones for a dollar?"
He does not understand that the inexpensive incandescent bulb is going cost him more a lot more than two dollars by the time it burns out. I've tried explaining it to him, and he seems to understand it very well each and every time, but he's old and he forgets.
At least he has someone like me who will try (over and over again) to give him straight advice that will save him some money.
But most people aren't like me, and they are not like you. They don't hang out here on HN. They may have no understanding of how these things work, or how efficiently works. They may even be misinformed and making decisions with bad information.
So, no: The invisible hand of the free market will not and can not sort it out by itself, because the free market does not have good technical literacy.
Meanwhile, the downsides to the ban are what? Rudeness? Sorry, but I'm not Canadian enough for that to matter to me.
I find that LED bulbs have a much higher failure rate than advertised, even though I am buying a selection of what I think are quality brands. (Strangely, the only kind I have not had die are some weird Chinese brand I can only find on Amazon.) I haven’t done the math but given I’m replacing at least one bulb a month I’m skeptical the efficiency makes up for the price, especially since I prefer 100w equivalent bulbs.
Maybe my power sucks but I don’t have this problem with incandescent and that’s what consumers care about. I have power filtering for my desktop though and the reporting doesn’t show any issues. CFLs were much worse, I’m glad those are done with. It feels like I’m paying more for inferior quality.
> I’m skeptical the efficiency makes up for the price
This might feel intuitively plausible but it really isn't. In the lifetime of a 60W incandescent bulb here (1000 hours) it would use £15 of electricity whereas an LED which produces significantly more light would cost about £2.25 over the same 1000 hours. So even if incandescent bulbs were literally free and the LED lamp costs £10, the LED lamp is a significant saving even if it didn't last longer.
If your LED lamps die much sooner than you expected, consider overheating. Unlike the incandescent which is designed to run hot because it's literally incandescent lighting, it is so incredibly hot that it glows white, LEDs don't like heat. If you have a fixture where the hot air is trapped next to the lamp it will reduce lifespan, consider different fixtures when they're next replaced, or placing lamps where heat would naturally be drawn away. Flaky power can be a problem but (presumably) there isn't much you can do about that, whereas overheating is very much an interior design choice that you can influence.
The LEDs don't just not last as long as advertised, they don't even last as long for me as the approximate incandescent average. There does seem to be sort of bathub curve factor, though: if they make it past a certain point they seem to last longer. Lower power ones also seem to last longer. Sometimes they just go out, sometimes they begin rapidly flickering.
Maybe then it is heat related as you suggested; I'd lend more credence to that too because the bulb-population I have not had a single one go bad in despite years of use now is SANSI, which have weird-looking ceramic heatsinks. It does also seem to be worse in some fixtures than others (worst: bathroom vanities.) But even that is pretty damning: LEDs should have been designed for the fixtures people actually have. (I find the habit of creating LED fixtures also pernicious - there's a lot more waste when they go bad.)
> The invisible hand of the free market will not and can not sort it out by itself
You are but one small part of the invisible hand! Other people have other preferences. Efficiency per dollar isn't the end-all, be-all of the market function. Is it so critical to stop people like your parents from using incandescent bulbs, on the basis that they are less efficient?
> They may even be misinformed and making decisions with bad information
We are all operating under imperfect information, as myself and other commenters have pointed out, because LED bulbs don't last as long as advertised. And worse, by banning incandescent bulbs outright, the government is preventing any further information from even being gathered.
> the free market does not have good technical literacy
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Add technical literacy to "benevolence".
> the downsides to the ban are what? Rudeness?
Well, rudeness is a euphemism for the ever-encroaching regulatory suffocation of the federal government, where people can't even freely choose what kind of lightbulb to buy. It's not like we're talking about trading fissile material.
> Is it so critical to stop people like your parents from using incandescent bulbs, on the basis that they are less efficient?
When these people complain that energy is expensive and want solutions (but can't math out their value themselves), then yes.
>We are all operating under imperfect information, as myself and other commenters have pointed out, because LED bulbs don't last as long as advertised.
Anecdotes are anecdotes. Here's my own anecdote: My LED bulbs last a long time. I still have the heavy, silicone-coated, heatsinked, glass-enveloped OG Cree LED bulbs that I got from Home Depot in ~2012, and they still work (the CRI sucks and always has, but they work). I've been using LEDs exclusively at home for close to a decade, and the only failure I recall on my own watch was of a fairly early wifi-connected TP-Link RGB bulb.
I use them in all kinds of applications, in enclosed fixtures and open fixtures with good airflow, indoors and out.
Furthermore, with incandescents I always felt it was important to keep spares in stock at home, and buying another package of light bulbs was a semi-regular occurrence. But with LEDs being as reliable as they are for me, I no longer feel compelled to have a stash of spare light bulbs at home.
> And worse, by banning incandescent bulbs outright, the government is preventing any further information from even being gathered.
They aren't outright banned. Many types of incandescent light bulbs remain available, and you're free to burn as many dollars on them as you wish. Is there the possibility that your own misinformation may be clouding your ability to form thoughts and make decisions that are based in reality?
> In either case, why a federal ban on incandescent bulbs? If LED bulbs are superior, the market will sort itself out.
Because part of the cost of the use of the incandescent bulb is externalized and therefore not subject to market pressure. Specifically, it uses (way) more energy, and the harnessing of that energy involves emission of greenhouse gases and depletion of non-renewable fuels.
I was at my parent's house and turned on a bathroom light which popped and startled me. I was very worried about some electrical fault that might be dangerous. It turns out it was a quite old incandescent light (probably the last one in their house) that had simply died. I forgot that they did that because I haven't replaced a bulb in literal years.
My understanding is that they need more air flow for good operation, and lots of ways you can socket them won't provide that, especially recessed lights. The 10 year lifespan is in more ideal circumstances, I guess.
While we should absolutely invest in grid level batteries, right now we use so much power that very large battery installations can only really hope to cover a few hours of usage for a portion of supply. It's great for helping peak solar and peak wind power production to be stored and then re released in times of demand. And definitely can help with grid resiliency.
But I'm not sure we have the battery technology to be able to distribute batteries everywhere with enough capacity to stop most power outages. That's quite a different deployment than centralized batteries on the grid. I hope we get there but the energy densities & costs probably are not be good enough - yet.
And if we do manage that, the outages that do happen will only be more severe. Are we going to have power outage drills? If not tons of people will be caught unprepared.
I wonder if there could be system where power grid tells customers when power is limited and they voluntarily reduce power based on their need. This is similar to system for limiting off-peak usage.
It does require customers to install a smart panel to control what gets power, and controller to drive it. There might be enough savings in off-peak power to get people to install it. They would also be a good idea for local batteries since those don't usually do full power.
I use mostly LED bulbs, but isn’t it true that LED bulbs all have a lot more blue in their spectrum than incandescent, even the warm ones?[1] I understand why people prefer incandescents but I really prefer my lights to be as white and bright as possible and so I’ve always bought LED bulbs.
I couldn’t find the post, but there was a more recent post (I think it reached the hacker news front page) about how just about every LED bulb has significant blue emissions.
Every "white" light has blue emissions (blue is, after all, part of white). Blue is visible, the LED blue emissions for a 2700K bulb are no more or less than the emissions from an incandescent.
> Curious, why not advocate for the power company to provide battery backup at the substations? Why should the only part of our infrastructure that's battery backed be the phone system?
There is a difference of several orders of magnitude between a backup power system that is able to keep a telco central office online (one singular building) and a backup power system that is able to keep an entire substation's connected subscribers online (thousands of buildings).
Landline phones provide power to customer phones, and would need to include the power for thousands of buildings in that.
Also, no one is requiring ISPs to power customer equipment. In most cases, that is impossible to do with fiber. But the provided equipment could include a battery backup. It is now possible to make small LiFePO4 battery that could survive for hours. It is acceptable to make backup power the customer's responsibility.
The important thing is that network equipment keeps working. Which in my experience it does.
There's still several orders of magnitude of difference between powering thousands of landline phones (which, by design, use very close to zero energy while on-hook), and powering thousands of homes and businesses.
No amount of handwaving or goalpost moving is going to ever change that. It is simply fact.
If power or internet goes out, wired VOIP phones won't work. Both the power and the internet have way worse reliability than the copper wire telephone where I live in a top 1% part of California.
If cell phone service goes out (or if cell phone batteries get exhausted and can't be recharged), then mobile phones won't work.
A landline is a very, very reasonable "emergency line" or even "regular line". The data and power connection to it will not be unexpectedly severed, for the most part.
I can very easily imagine an "extended outage" for whatever reason of power, internet, and/or mobile phone service, take your pick. In any of these cases, I would expect to basically be able to use the landline phone to call a relative, friend or co-worker pretty much anywhere in the world. Ok, maybe some disasters take out copper wire telephones, or maybe sometimes copper wire telephones have issues (rare but possible), but this is still a pretty good backup/emergency/constant connection.
If you really have got your sh* together, you have a landline, IMO.
There is a copper contact running all the way to some box, and to some substation, which has utility-managed diesel backup generators and switching and all that jazz. I don't care if it's digital and so forth behind the scenes. It's managed! It works from their system to mine, end of story.
We have a residential elevator. It has a phone line for emergencies, like if you get stuck in the elevator by yourself. That goes to a copper wire telephone wire. I do NOT want to rely on the unreliable California power utility to not have a scheduled or unscheduled outage, causing the elevator fail, and also shutting off power to a cable box powering some VOIP service. Really?
Sure, I could add backup batteries. Sure, I could add automatic diesel power generators. But, the phone company already has those! Do I need a secondary and/or tertiary ISP as backup as well, and somehow join them together? (Some will say, "yes, of course".)
What are they going to do next, ban standard incandescent light bulbs? Oh, wait, they already did that! Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison must be spinning in their graves!
I get the idea is to cut costs or something, but I think this is a safety issue, no?
If we can't have real light bulbs, and we can't have real telephones lines, is there a name for that? We used to have more or less "additive" technologies. A new one would go add to the list of available technologies, not really fully replacing any. Just adding to the list of what you can readily have/do. But this concept of "removing" solid technologies for arguably "worse" ones--I think it's not merely enshittification. This seems like a whole 'nother branch of weird.
Maybe there's some state that will reverse some of this stuff; one can hope, can't one?
If you use one or more copper lines: what is your plan for the post-telephone-line world, if it comes to it?