This is an industry term that has been around for a long time. POTS stands for Plain Old Telephone Service. This specifically refers to a traditional two wire (one pair) of copper wires that comes into a building to provide connectivity to a traditional analogue phone. For over one hundred years this was the standard way of making a phone call. Fun fact, the first telephone line was set up in Boston in 1877. It connected the home of Charles Williams Jr. in Somerville MA with his Boston office. The POTS lines have been, and still are, provided by the traditional phone company. Now POTS lines are being replaced by VoIP (Voice over IP) services. This is when a voice or sound is converted from the standard analogue wavelengths to a digital signal and is transmitted over the internet line instead of over POTS lines. Thus, phone calls are now more commonly made over your internet connection and the standard phone (POTS) lines are going away. In fact, many people are noticing their phone bills have gone up dramatically because traditional phone companies no longer want to support the 100-year-old copper lines and older style equipment and are forcing people over to VoIP. People have seen bills go from $20-$30 per phone line to $100+ per phone line. It makes the POTS lines no longer cost effective.
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