Word.ws English Dictionary

plain old telephone service

plain old telephone service noun: a traditional telephony system based on the analog transmission of sound, as opposed to newer alternatives like ISDN or VoIP.

Noun

plain old telephone service (uncountable)

  1. A traditional telephony system based on the analog transmission of sound, as opposed to newer alternatives like ISDN or VoIP.

Origin of plain old telephone service

A reinterpretation of the long-standing acronym POTS, originally standing for post office telephone system.

Questions about plain old telephone service

What does plain old telephone service mean?
Plain old telephone service means a traditional telephony system based on the analog transmission of sound, as opposed to newer alternatives like ISDN or VoIP.
What part of speech is plain old telephone service?
Plain old telephone service is a noun.

Words near plain old telephone service in the dictionary

  1. Plain of Esdraelon
  2. Plain of Jars
  3. plain of Mars
  4. plain old
  5. plain old data
  6. plain old telephone service
  7. plain paper
  8. plain papers
  9. plain people
  10. plain point
  11. plain points

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plain old telephone service (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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