When millions of AT&T customers across the country briefly lost cell service last month, Francella Jackson, 61, of Fairview Heights, Ill., said she grabbed her worn Southwestern Bell landline and called her friends “just so we could laugh at people who couldn’t use their phones.”
“Why, isn’t it wonderful that we can talk and have a wonderful conversation?” he remembered saying. “We had a good laugh.”
Derek Shaw, 68, of York, Pa., said he has an Android cell phone but prefers to talk on his black cordless landline at home. The sound quality is better, he said, and the phone is easier to hold during long conversations. Mr. Shaw said he also likes talking to people face-to-face rather than on Zoom, and he never got rid of his vinyl record collection when CDs became hot in the 1990s.
“I never even thought about giving up my landline,” she said. “I’ll go kicking and screaming when I have to.”
To many, landlines seem as necessary as steamships and telegraphs in the age of smartphones. But to those who still use them, they offer distinct advantages. Spurred by AT&T’s Feb. 22 shutdown and AT&T’s push to phase out traditional landline phones in California, those who own them are speaking out in defense of their old phones.
For them, the landline is a lifeline during power outages, a welcome return to the days before scrolling and push notifications, and a more convenient, better-sounding alternative to tiny, thin smartphones.
“I love my landline,” said Ms. Jackson, who has had hers since the 1980s. “People call me old-fashioned, but I’ll be old-fashioned.”
He has a cell phone but no internet at home, he said. She loves that she still remembers her friends’ phone numbers and never misses a call. “I’m a little nostalgic,” Ms. Jackson said. “With technology, while I embrace it, there are some things I like to hold on to.”
Some younger people also see positives in the stable. Cory Sechrest, 32, of Chicago, said he and his girlfriend got a pink landline to use in case the power goes out. He said he doesn’t know anyone else his age who has one.
When friends visit, “They pause, look at it and say, ‘What’s that?'” she said. “It gets a few laughs.”
Landlines can feel like a gateway to the pre-internet era. Many Americans grew up with the classic rotary phone mounted on the kitchen wall that the whole family had to share, offering reliability but no privacy. Some got the burger phone in their teenage bedroom after begging their parents for weeks. Some longed for the football phone that came free with a subscription to Sports Illustrated.
Author Charli Penn wrote in Apartment Therapy that, as a millennial, she got a landline because it gives her a break from her cellphone, is easier for her father to use, and takes her back in time.
“If plaid miniskirts, ivy garland and thick-soled combat boots can enjoy a welcome comeback, why can’t I relax into an hour-long conversation using my home phone like I did in my teenage years and wireless in the early 20s?” Ms. Penn wrote.
Some people also like landlines for aesthetic reasons. Mark Treutelaar, the co-owner with his wife, Galina, of the Old Phone Shop, which sells and repairs landlines in Franklin, Wis., said he’s seen an uptick in sales of the brightly colored, rotary-dial wall and desk. phones from the 1960s and 70s.
“We’ve been selling more phones recently than ever before,” Mr Treutelaar said. “People like them just because they remember them from when they were younger and, even if they don’t have a landline, they buy them as decorations or connect them to mobile phones via Bluetooth.”
Others rely on landlines in rural areas with poor cell phone coverage. However, landline users are a distinct minority in the United States.
About 73 percent of American adults lived in a household with no landline but at least one cell phone in 2022, according to the most recent data collected by the federal government. Age, not surprisingly, was a key factor in phone use. Nearly 90 percent of Americans ages 25 to 29 reported using cell phones only, compared to less than half of Americans over age 65.
Citing the declining popularity of landlines, AT&T asked California regulators last year to waive its obligation to maintain the traditional copper-wire telephone network, the kind that connected American households for most of the last century.
AT&T said the number of copper landlines, known as plain old telephone service, or POTS, it provides in California will drop by 89 percent from 2000 to 2021. Customers generally pay about $34.50 a month for this service, according to the California Public Defender’s Office. But even most landline users rely primarily on their cellphones, according to AT&T.
“Like Blockbuster rentals and Kodak film, POTS has fallen from technological superiority to effective obsolescence over the course of a generation,” AT&T wrote in its filing with the California Public Utilities Commission.
AT&T described the proposal as part of a multiyear effort to eventually move landline customers to cell phones or to fiber-optic cables that provide Internet and landline service. It says 20 other states have already allowed it to make that transition.
“No customer will be left without voice or 911 service,” Susan Johnson, executive vice president of wireline transformation for AT&T, said in a statement. “For customers who do not yet have alternative options available, we will continue to provide their existing voice service as long as necessary.”
But the proposal has unleashed a backlash, with hundreds of landline users filing public comments urging California to reject it. Many say that the copper cable system, because it is generally self-powered, is the most reliable way to reach emergency services if the power goes out during a flood, fire or storm. AT&T says fiber optic cables are more durable and easier to repair, although a fiber optic phone will die without a battery backup in place.
“If we have health issues, especially, it’s the most important thing to be able to use our rotary phone,” said Francesca Ciancutti, who lives in Mendocino County, California. “It is absolutely critical. And all our neighbors feel the same.”
It’s a concern that has led many people across the country to keep their landlines.
Katie Lanza, 37, of Fort Worth, said she was once waiting to replace the fuse for her cell phone, which had been chewed by her dog, when she became ill in the middle of the night. With no way to call for help, he found himself knocking on a neighbor’s door at 2am. That was about 14 years ago, he said, and he’s had a landline ever since.
“I was always afraid that if something happened to my mobile phone, I wouldn’t be able to call anyone,” Ms Lanza said.
Ms. Jackson said she was concerned about cyberattacks disrupting her cellphone service. But mostly, she said, her landline is just a better way to talk to people after work.
“I like to relax and remember things as they were,” he said. “It’s relaxing for me to pick up and have a long conversation with my friends on my landline.”
