Norway: Landlines will no longer be supported | Hacker News Reader

Norway: Landlines will no longer be supported

nrk.no

66 pointszabaki52 comments

Around 2012-2013, my 5/6-ish year old daughter found an old wired phone I kept around and she was astonished when I told her that wires used to connect phones. "You need wires to phone call? But why!"

A few years back, in India, competition amongst the ISP/Telephone providers were heating up and everything became so cheap and readily available. I got Jio for fun, and then Airtel in hope to stop them from calling/texting/spamming me. Now, I have two additional Internet fibers coming in besides the primary, and they came with free (I think, Unlimited) phone calls. So, I added two wired phones and kept them.

Now, my 2nd daughter (5-ish year old) is intrigue and knows she can talk to her grandparents on the other end. She is brimming with triumph and fun that she knows the "numbers to grandma and grandpa."

Growing up, phones were a luxury and I know the ins-out of the only telephone exchange in our tiny home-town, where I know quite a few top executives (friends' father/uncles). I love the nostalgia of having a wired phone and I want that rotary ones.

I still have a landline at home that I basically never use, "just in case". When I had a co-worker over a few years ago he brought his ~8yo, and it was a similar story. A wired phone was totally fascinating for him. Never mind that cell phones are tiny, are powered from a battery and make your voice travel through the air to as far away as you want, and even make it possible to see the person you're taking to. No, that's normal and boring. But when I used that phone to call his dad who was over in the living room, he was completely amazed and told his dad that he's calling him with that wired phone in the kitchen.

Also it makes a world of difference when kids learn that they can actually build an usable toy phone by connecting a battery, some long wires and two pairs of carbon mic and speaker capsules. There were kits to do that when us grey beards were kids, and I'm confident some of them contributed to a few engineering careers much later.

Reminds of a joke from Futurama, when a person from the year 3000 sees a phone booth:

“They have phones in booths now? What am I logging this thing around for!?” And throws away their cellphone.

> I still have a landline at home that I basically never use, "just in case".

I have a landline that I only use to call my mobile phone, when I lose it within the house.

In the UK, unless you're on virgin (there might be a few others I'm unaware of), you're pretty much forced to have a landline for which you're charged line rental, even if you don't or will never use it.

Things seem to be changing. We're with BT and would have had to pay a lot extra for a phone line.

I am with Vodafone and the standard broadband fee includes the landline.

But yes, there is still always a landline required and thus has to be priced in somehow.

Now they have deployed full fibre so I could ditch everything and move to that but that would be more expensive...

I'm with Vodafone too but I didn't need a line rental, I wonder if they've changed their policy as I only got mine a couple years ago.

I've been with Vodafone for 10 months now. Wanted to have broadband and two mobile lines. Was forced to get the landline in the package. I just never plugged any phone to the wire.

Here too in Spain though on pretty much all providers (mine is orange) though it's not really a real landline but VOIP.

I keep mine disconnected because all I get on it is spam.

At least in London there's a few others like: - Hyperopic - Comunity fibre - g.network

I'm sure there are more

> even if you don't or will never use it

But if your VDSL signal is coming down the landline then you _are_ using it. At least that's what I told myself to try to feel better about it (FTTP now!)

Yeah that’s not true anymore. You can have broadband without a landline from most providers now. We have internet from BT over a normal telephone cable but don’t have phone service, it was an optional extra.

This used to be the case, but these days if you’re in a fibre area or area with BT’s widely available FTTC offering, BT will happily sell you a “no landline” deal on their website.

Incidentally their landlines on fibre are basically VoIP phones with a battery backup.

Same with most other fibre providers, like Vodafone.

You will never forget the numbers. Bloody waste of memory bits.

113 (1952) ; Human operator on small island

444303 (1958)

782502 (1966)

1484997 (1978) ; My first personal phone, It was also routed to my cell phone until 2018.

Wow. This is Gold. I used to remember historical dates for school by adding/mixing with phone numbers. I had my "phone-diary" with a cryptic number pattern for each page (just in case, it got lost or stolen). I had my first personal (mobile) phone/number in 2000 and that was a fresh start.

I still remember my parent´s home landline from 30+ years ago (long gone) but I have no idea of what is my current one or any other of the many I have had to have over years due to telecoms´ bundles. They are not useful anymore, not even as a resilient second line since they are connected to the same fibre line. It is just a gimmick to extract a few more euros from the consumer.

Apropos. I can never remember my current phone number. Because it is never used. But they ask it anyway sometimes. So I have termux shortcut button to:

    termux-volume music 15
    while true; do
     termux-tts-speak -l fi 5 5 5 1 2 3 4 5
     sleep 1
    done

Works like a charm and all errors are at the receiving end.

I also remember quite many numbers of my friends from the elementary school. We lived in the same area so we had pretty similar numbers which made it easier to learn them - and to remember them after 25 years.

getting misty-eyed thinking of all the kids who'll never become phone phreaks. man, early technology was fun.

maybe we should bring back phreaking just as a game. is there such a thing as a hacker museum? we could set up a mini exchange, payphones, pbx, conf lines, etc and let kids hack it. and there would be no website; you'd have to connect to the BBS to get information, or join a party line.

> In connection with the remediation of the copper network, we have been clear that no one should lose their phone. Either we move them to fiber or mobile. For some very few people, we have been forced to find special solutions.

Tbh it came as a bit of shock for me. Purely because of the sentimental value. I haven't had a landline in almost 20 years but I still remember the phone number we grew up with. Once I start a family I also thought "the family" needed a phone number, not just a phone number to each person. I guess that is still possible over mobile phone lines though. I was surprised nevertheless.

I have wondered what the closest thing for a "family" contact number might be. At least in the US.

One idea that came to mind was a family GMRS license. Cheap and FCC-official for the whole family, but until the spec is modified there might be a tiny distance issue. :-)

The universal family contact in the US is now “[familyname555]@[cablecarrier].com/net”

I noticed people aren't using those anymore, at least not around where I live. Seems like there's a family Gmail address more often unless they are 50+ y.o.

I’m guessing the numbers will stay and it connects to a VOIP phone plugged into the router.

We all stil have a telephone pole in the yard - during the last refurbishment I asked the contractor to cut the wire from my office jack to just short of telephone box - cap it and loop it and use a cable tie to put it on the pole.

We now have an underground fibre to all the homes in our suburb.

US Robotics will always be special to me and nothing to do with robots.

In NZ, landlines are also on their way out.

It's not quite unsupported, but you can't sign up for a new copper landline plan unless there is no mobile coverage and no fibre coverage at your property. Otherwise, for anyone who really wants a "landline" you are getting VOIP over fibre or VOIP over mobile broadband.

87% of population have access to the new fibre network, and the old copper network is just redundant and unmantained in most built-up areas. Chorus recent started actively forcing remaining customers off it in some areas.

Personally, I've been without a landline for 10 years, and even my parents got rid of their landline a few years back. It's just cheaper to use a mobile phones instead (and in NZ, mobile phones come with the additional benefit of never receiving spam calls)

It seems to me that VOIP over fiber is functionally similar to a landline - you pick up a clunky phone and return it to a cradle. I miss that analog feeling! I guess the main difference is that you lose the ability to place a call if the power goes out.

Australia is all voip too now. Although my new apartment has the connections inside the wardrobe which would make it pretty awkward to use for phone calls.

Very convenient for stashing away the router though.

A landline will usually still work when there is a power outage - VOIP and fibre not so much.

I'm in the habit of stashing a few UPS units around the house, so the home network has coverage....

I think my ISP in the UK (BT) offer a fibre package that has battery backup, probably for customers that have medical or emergency devices connected.

Norway also shut down their old radio network. Which was sad to me as a history nerd because I remember reading about the heroic people who smuggled radios in briefcases and in attics just to bring news to people during german occupation.

My great grandfather had a radio hidden under a pile of wood.

One time a bored German soldier threw pieces of wood at the wall and almost got to the radio. My great grandfather told him he had to stop because there was a sick old lady in the house and he did.

My grandmother was just a kid and used to be really scared that the Germans would find the radio and send her parents away to a concentration camp. I guess this is the reason all the tracking and surveillance on the internet was quite scary to her and made her rather wary of using it.

Also 3G is no longer in Norway for some time.

The UK is getting rid of the copper network as well (I think originally it was supposed to be 2025? But I think it’s been pushed back)

There is already a push to not sell phone lines that support voice, so you just get a line that supports broadband only, getting more people used to voip - but there are so many independent ISPs popping up (now that the by ducting is available to use) that they are chucking full fibre left right and centre.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out regarding emergency calls when it’s fully switched off.

In the event of a disaster (earthquake, flood, blizzard) is voip infrastructure more or less 'fragile' than a copper landline?

I assume this deprication will probably be cost related but I am curious about the implications on the emergency side of things.

Pure old copper-line phones did not need a working power outlet in your home - electricity was introduced to the system at facilities of the phone company (often miles away), and often used a dedicated electric grid.

With VoIP, you tend to have your own, plugged-in wall box. Which becomes useless the moment your electricity stops, e.g. in case of natural disasters.

Also, analog telephony just sounds better than digital one. No downsampling happening.

and if you want to dial 911 with a land line, you literally only need a speaker and resistor connected to the phone line. you can yell into it as a mic, and just tapping the line on and off dials a number.

Analog telephony doesn’t get used anymore. As soon as the call hits a telco box it’s going digital

Has anyone tried plugging all of their internet-related equipment into a UPS, including the wall box? Will that allow you to keep VoIP working in the event of a power outage, or is it a pointless exercise since the ISP's equipment on the pole will also be down?

I did this during our last power cut. The ISP was unaffected. Kept a few table lamps going too.

Not to mention the exchange usually had tens or hundreds of lead acid batteries which could keep it running for a long time.

Analog telephones have terrible bandwidth. Just 300–3,300 Hz. This it technically called the voiceband, but it cuts off a good portion of female speech.

Also, all phone lines these days, wether POTS or VOIP are digitally trunked and switched.

I think that for most households, mobile phones are increasingly the replacement for landlines. That requires mobile operators to keep at least a share of their cell towers online, which seems easier than keeping the physical line to each household online in the event of a disaster.

It's not really about cost. It has implications on cost, but…

Some spare parts have been out of production for decades. If one of those parts needs replacement, then keeping an exchange running may now need replacing much more than just the broken part, or the technicians may try using parts from other exchanges (the number of landlines is much lower than at peak, so there are spare spares in many exchanges, so to speak). That's an expensive way to maintain a network, obviously.

VoIP infrastructure is more fragile than copper assuming equal hardware age and comparable maintenance regimes, but I assume that the lack of spare parts changes that.

New Zealand is also getting rid of its copper network -- I held on to my connection for as long as possible. I still have it, they haven't actually shut it off yet, but they have warned me that it's coming in some number of months.

I wonder how it will be for services that depend on landlines like fax.

fax is still used at all medical centres, pharmacies, hospitals, etc. would this influence those businesses?

Future generations will wonder why do we call the mobile phones “mobile”

Or "phone"

I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say “mobile” tbh. It’s always just a phone.

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