Plain old telephone service (POTS) is the voice-grade telephone service that remains the basic form of residential and small business service connection to the telephone network in most parts of the world. The name is a reflection of the telephone service still available after the advent of more advanced forms of telephony such as ISDN, mobile phones and VoIP. It has been available almost since the introduction of the public telephone system in the late 19th century, in a form mostly unchanged to the normal user despite the introduction of Touch Tone dialing, electronic telephone exchanges and fiber-optic communication into the public switched telephone network (PSTN / Public Switch Telephone Network)
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