said by JSP932:I am moving to a new location and u-verse is available. The ATT sales rep said with u-verse it requires digital phones which ATT provides. I ask the phone rep If my existing phones could be used with u-verse. He said my old phones use copper wire u-verse uses fiber optics so my existing phones and answering machines wont work. I ask the rep or told the rep "I repair consumer electronics for occupation and I know they make adaptors to convert digital audio to analog audio and analog audio to digital digital. You would think there would be one for phones. His reply was there was no such technology for that. I have not seen anything to give me a definite answer on the web, that's how I found this forum. I have asked every way I could think of "will analog phones work with u-verse" I guess maybe there not called analog phones.
The AT&T Sales rep is wrong! I use traditional analog phones and even an analog answering machine with my U-verse VDSL service!
The U-verse modem provides the analog dial tone at the back of the modem for the U-verse VoIP offering. This allows you to plug a traditional analog device directly to the back of the modem or backfeeding your dial-tone from the modem to your inside wiriing (IW) to provide dial-tone at all wired jacks.
You also have the option of keeping or getting traditional POTS phone service alongside U-verse if you don't care for VoIP service and in my market AT&T will price match the POTS pricing to match the slightly lower U-verse VoIP pricing!
Most U-verse VDSL plants are indeed a combination of Fiber to the Node (FTTN) and then copper to you. In addition to the old BellSouth FTTP, there are also new green field installs of FTTP in several markets; CA, MI and other states besides just a few of the former 12 BellSouth markest.
Dave