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Comment by bpicolo | Hacker News Reader

Sort of weird that it's something they bothered with, considering home phones are on the out and out.

Edit: That said, I'm sure there are still 100m Americans with phone service, but I don't know that the demographics of people who care to switch to google fiber and need phones are really that overlapping. Then again, Google probably researched this much more than I did. Just seems odd from my perspective.

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Man, this site skews young! I just saw a smartwatch-related thread a couple of days ago, with half the comments indicating that no one wears a wristwatch. Today, no one has a home phone.

Forward-looking trends are what they are... but the overwhelming majority of the population is over 30. And that's the demographic with the overwhelming majority of income. Telephony is a pretty easy bolt-on for Google Fiber, especially since they already have the Google Voice infrastructure in place. So why wouldn't they?

E911 service is more reliable with a land line, even if it's VoIP, since the location is fixed. Some recommend having a line just for that.

It's also powered from the central office, and doesn't require a local electrical power source.

It's not weird at all. A simple $10 a month home phone line can make or break the deal when trying to get a potential residential customer to switch to Google Fiber from an incumbent carrier. Also consider the number of younger people trying to get faster internet at their parents home so they can work/Netflix when they come visit, etc. This is a very smart play.

I still have a home phone, but it's an ObiTalk box that logs into my Google Voice account, so I don't pay anything for it. I actually prefer it over my cell phone because the call quality is much better.

This is the "sort of" landline solution that I use. I get iffy cell reception in my home, this means is a nice affordable way to ensure calls get through.

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