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Plain Old Telephone Service

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Plain Old Telephone Service

(communications)
(POTS) The traditional voice service provided by phone companies, especially when opposed to data services.

Note that the acronym POTS is sometimes expanded as "Plain Old Telephone System" in which sense it is synonymous to Public Switched Telephone Network but used somewhat derogatively.
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References in periodicals archive
Utah's small towns served by the national telecom giant typically suffer from aging switches and lines that were fine for POTS literally, "plain old telephone service") but which cannot handle the demands of today's high-tech user.
A: Plain Old Telephone Service is standard analog telephone lines using a twisted pair of copper wires.
Consider plain old telephone service. For decades, regulators have set the price of local telephone service artificially low.
It provides end users with high-bandwidth Internet access at speeds of 1.5 Mbps downstream and 512 kbps upstream over "Plain Old Telephone Service" -- or up to 27 times faster than conventional 56 kbps analog modems.
Today, a handful of firms is exploiting a technology called fixed, wireless broadband as an alternative to optical fiber; this shouldn't be confused with the "wireless" of mobile phones, paging systems, mobile-enabled laptops, and certain types of plain old telephone service (POTS).
At first, Motorola will OEM Alcatel's dual channel product but Chadock said the two plan to work together to develop products in CODECs and SLICs for Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) applications.
Compelling content like top-quality video and audio, interactive game playing, Internet telephony and business applications such as Internet group collaboration are nearly impossible to facilitate through analog dial-up connections, also known as plain old telephone service (POTS).
From slow, plain old telephone service to speedy dedicated lines, CPAs have a choice of cable, integrated service digital networks, satellites, digital subscriber lines and other technologies when designing their networks for speed and efficiency.
Dizard emphasizes the physical nuts and bolts that make the Meganet system possible and recognizes that for years to come a majority of the earth's inhabitants will still benefit primarily from reliable POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).
Technologies range from POTS (plain old telephone service) to cable lines, which may revolutionize the Internet by allowing much quicker access to the Internet than standard phone lines.
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