Short for
plain old telephone service, which refers to the standard telephone service that most homes use. In contrast, telephone services based on high-speed,
digital communications lines, such as
ISDN and
FDDI, are not POTS. The main distinctions between POTS and non-POTS services are speed and
bandwidth. POTS is generally restricted to about 52
Kbps (52,000
bits per second).
The POTS network is also called the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
POTS should not be confused with pot, an abbreviation of potentiometer.
