Land Line

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What Does Land Line Mean?

A land line is a physical – as opposed to wireless – telecommunications medium that uses a metal wire or fiber optic cable to transmit a signal. The term landline is most often used to refer to a telephone line, although it can also be used to refer to wired data transfer services.

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This technology is increasingly being replaced by cellular telephone and other wireless transmission services.

Techopedia Explains Land Line

Up until fairly recently, land line telephones were the only option, but new wireless infrastructure has allowed many users to switch to wireless systems. As a result, existing land line infrastructure is an issue in current public administration as the number of land line users continues to decline. Many homes that are wired for land line service do not use it, and some experts speculate that this will lead to changes in how land line infrastructure is maintained. Meanwhile, a similar shift is going on in data transfer; where cabling data into homes and other locations used to be the norm, vendors are now offering mobile hot spots that send data from the Internet using a wireless signal. The smartphone or mobile device is also another major factor in changes to how land lines are used to provide telecommunications services.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.