When hundreds of thousands of AT&T clients throughout the nation briefly misplaced their cellphone service final month, Francella Jackson, 61, of Fairview Heights, In poor health., mentioned she picked up her well-worn Southwestern Bell push-button landline telephone and referred to as her mates “simply so we might giggle on the individuals who couldn’t use their telephones.”

“Why, isn’t it nice that we are able to speak and have an amazing dialog?” she recalled saying. “We had giggle.”

Derek Shaw, 68, of York, Pa., mentioned he has an Android cell phone, however prefers speaking on his black cordless landline at dwelling. The sound high quality is best, he mentioned, and the telephone is less complicated to carry throughout lengthy conversations. Mr. Shaw mentioned that he additionally likes speaking to folks nose to nose fairly than on Zoom and by no means removed his vinyl document assortment when CDs received scorching within the Nineties.

“I’ve by no means even considered giving up my landline,” he mentioned. “I’ll go kicking and screaming when I’ve to.”

To many, landline telephones have come to look as important as steamships and telegrams within the smartphone period. However to those that nonetheless use them, they provide distinct benefits. Prompted by the AT&T outage on Feb. 22 and a push by AT&T to phase out traditional landlines in California, those that have them are talking out in protection of their outdated telephones.

To them, the landline is a lifeline throughout energy outages, a welcome throwback to the period earlier than doomscrolling and push alerts, and a extra comfy, better-sounding different to tinny, skinny smartphones.

“I really like my landline,” mentioned Ms. Jackson, who has had hers because the Nineteen Eighties. “Individuals name me old style, however I’ll be old style.”

She has a cellphone however no web at dwelling, she mentioned. She likes that she nonetheless remembers her mates’ telephone numbers and by no means has a dropped name. “I’m just a little nostalgic,” Ms. Jackson mentioned. “With expertise, though I embrace it, there are some issues I like to carry on to.”

Some youthful folks additionally see upsides to landlines. Cory Sechrest, 32, of Chicago, mentioned he and his girlfriend received a pink landline telephone to make use of simply in case the ability goes out. He mentioned he doesn’t know anybody else his age who has one.

When mates go to, “They take a pause, take a look at it and say, ‘What’s that?’” he mentioned. “It will get a couple of chuckles.”

Landlines can really feel like a portal to the pre-internet period. Many Individuals grew up with the basic rotary telephone mounted on the kitchen wall that the entire household needed to share, providing reliability however no privateness. Some received the burger telephone of their teenage bed room after begging their mother and father for weeks. Some coveted the football phone that got here free with a subscription to Sports activities Illustrated.

The author Charli Penn wrote in Apartment Therapy that, as a millennial, she received a landline telephone as a result of it provides her a break from her cellphone, is less complicated for her father to make use of and takes her again in time.

“If plaid mini skirts, ivy garland, and thick-soled fight boots can get pleasure from a welcome comeback, why can’t I cozy as much as an hourslong dialog utilizing my cordless home telephone, similar to I did again in my teen years and early 20s?” Ms. Penn wrote.

Some additionally like landline telephones for aesthetic causes. Mark Treutelaar, the co-owner, along with his spouse, Galina, of the Previous Telephone Store, which sells and repairs landline telephones in Franklin, Wis., mentioned he has seen an uptick in gross sales of brightly coloured, rotary-dial wall and desk telephones from the Sixties and ’70s.

“We’re promoting extra telephones just lately than ever earlier than,” Mr. Treutelaar mentioned. “Individuals like them simply because they keep in mind them from after they have been youthful and, even when they don’t have a landline, they’re shopping for them as simply ornament or are hooking them to cellphones by Bluetooth.”

Others depend on landlines in rural areas with spotty cellphone protection. Nonetheless, landline customers are a definite minority in america.

About 73 p.c of American adults lived in a family with no landline however no less than one cellphone in 2022, based on the most recent data collected by the federal authorities. Age, not surprisingly, was a key think about telephone use. Practically 90 p.c of Individuals ages 25 to 29 reported that they used solely cellphones, in comparison with lower than half of Individuals over 65.

Citing the plummeting reputation of landlines, AT&T requested California regulators final yr to be relieved of its obligation to keep up its conventional copper-wire telephone community, the type that related American households for many of the final century.

AT&T mentioned the variety of copper landlines, often called plain outdated phone service, or POTS, that it supplies in California fell by 89 p.c from 2000 to 2021. Prospects typically pay about $34.50 a month for that service, based on the California Public Advocates Workplace. However even most landline customers rely totally on their cellphones, based on AT&T.

“Like Blockbuster leases and Kodak movie, POTS has fallen from technological primacy to efficient obsolescence in the midst of a era,” AT&T wrote in its software to the California Public Utilities Fee.

AT&T described the proposal as a part of a multiyear effort to ultimately transfer landline clients to cellphones or to fiber optic cables that carry web and landline telephone service. It says 20 different states have already allowed it to make that transition.

“No buyer will likely be left with out voice or 911 service,” Susan Johnson, government vp of wireline transformation for AT&T, mentioned in an announcement. “For purchasers who don’t have different choices accessible but, we are going to proceed to supply their current voice service so long as is required.”

Nonetheless, the proposal has unleashed a fierce blowback, with a whole bunch of landline customers submitting public comments urging California to reject it. Many say the copper wire system, as a result of it’s typically self-powered, is essentially the most dependable method to attain emergency companies if the ability fails throughout a flood, wildfire or storm. AT&T says fiber cables are extra resilient and simpler to restore, though a fiber optic telephone will die with no backup battery in place.

“If now we have well being points, particularly, it’s an important factor to have the ability to use our rotary telephone,” mentioned Francesca Ciancutti, who lives in Mendocino County, Calif. “It’s completely essential. And all our neighbors really feel the identical method.”

It’s a priority that has led many individuals across the nation to carry on to their landlines.

Katie Lanza, 37, of Fort Value, mentioned she had as soon as been ready for an insurance coverage alternative for her cellphone, which had been chewed by her canine, when she received sick in the course of the evening. With no method to name for assist, she discovered herself knocking on a neighbor’s door at 2 a.m. That was about 14 years in the past, she mentioned, and he or she’s had a landline ever since.

“It’s at all times been my concern that if one thing occurred to my cellphone, I wouldn’t be capable to name anyone,” Ms. Lanza mentioned.

Ms. Jackson mentioned she worries about cyberattacks disrupting her cellphone service. However largely, she mentioned, her landline is only a nicer method to speak to folks after work.

“I similar to to relax and keep in mind issues how they have been,” she mentioned. “It’s stress-free for me to select up and have an extended dialog with my mates on my landline telephone.”