Customer-friendly word for "landline"

[Deborah Riffin]

I worked in telecom back in the 80's and the acronymn POTS was always used...plain old telephone service requiring bell to come out and install a telephone jack in your home or business and then connect it to a BOX (local to your neighbor) and then make connect to Central Office...That explaination always worked well for training no -technical customers....


Deborah Riffin 
Writing for Business 
408-206-1423 (cell) 
408-249-3623 (office/fax) 

"Accuracy and Excellence"



-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Prentice <sp10 at leximation.com>
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 4, 2011 8:52 am
Subject: Re: Customer-friendly word for "landline"


Keep in mind your underlying reason for trying to differentiate between different types of phone systems. Just because a phone is "wired" doesn't mean that it's POTS .. an IP-based phone system may look just like a POTS system, but technically, isn't (is VOIP considered a "landline" .. I dunno). Also, you might have a "mobile" phone that's not really cellular, but radio or other form of "wireless". I'm no expert in these things, but the line isn't always clear, especially to the average reader. 
 
I'd be careful in even bothering to differentiate between the various systems unless it is really crucial to what you're documenting. No matter how you describe it, unless you go into great technical detail, it's likely to be confusing or wrong for some situations. 
 
Cheers, 
 
...scott 
 
Böðvar Björgvinsson wrote: 
> What is wrong with landline? Is it bad that it is easily 
> understandable? Should you really try to find a word that no none 
> understands without a Masters degree in English? 
> 
> It seems to me that there is an ongoing snob for Latin-based words, 
> acronyms (Latin) and abbreviations (Latin) (or shorts (Humanly 
> understandable language)) in England and the US, which means that you 
> have to constantly refer to a dead language. How much time, effort and 
> ink do you think is spent on explaining "English" words to the 
> English-speaking? 
> 
> Let's use the simple words when we can. 
> 
> KISS 
> 
> Bodvar Bjorgvinsson 
> 
> 2011/2/4 Syed Zaeem Hosain (Syed.Hosain at aeris.net) <Syed.Hosain at aeris.net>: 
> >> We mostly use "wireless" and "wireline" to distinguish the two (my company is in the wireless data business for cellular). 
>> 
>> On fewer occasions, simply "landline" and "POTS". 
>> 
>> Depends on the audience. :) 
>> 
>> Z 
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- 
>> From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of John Posada 
>> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 2:03 PM 
>> To: Alan T Litchfield 
>> Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com; Butler, Darren J CTR USAF AFMC WR-ALC/ENGLTB 
>> Subject: Re: Customer-friendly word for "landline" 
>> 
>> Maybe nothing, just exploring alternative...look like there really aren't any...thanks anyway 
>> 
>> On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Alan T Litchfield <alan at alphabyte.co.nz> wrote: 
>> >>> Telephone? 
>>> 
>>> What's wrong with landline? 
>>> 
>>> Alan 
>>> >> _______________________________________________ 
>> 
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