Todd
On Thursday 05-15-2008 show. You mentioned comments about POTS = "Plain Old Telephone Service" with add-ons. I opine, that nothing has surpassed POTS for quality, dependability and its ability to still work when there is a power outage.
I believe that two cans and a string is better than both VOIP = Voice over IP and Cellphones. Both of these system suffer. Voip suffers from Chop, Jitter, and Dropouts, depending on the internet and how busy it is at the time. Cellphones used to be great. You could hear a pin drop at the other end. That is until they took bandwidth for text messaging and web browsing. They left just enough bandwidth for voice to get by. Ever notice how background noise on a cellphone sounds like white noise. There is not enough bandwidth to send the real definition of the noise. Cellphones are also subject to dropout.
These are my thoughts on the subject for 39 years of Telecommunications so far. Enjoy!!