The rush to eliminate "copper" landline phone service has been going on in the US for at least 15 years now...

In many parts of the US the telco's have "decommissioned" the old copper infrastructure and laid next to it all fiber optics from the central office to the sub division / greater neighborhood area aka "Fiber to the node."

A 2010 order from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that mandated all POTS lines in the US be replaced with an alternative service by August 2, 2022. But that date has passed and some legacy telco's still offer copper landline but it's not cheap.

My subdivision which was built about 18 years ago is fiber to the neighborhood and the new subdivision going in down the road from here will be all fiber to the premise / home for both the Telco and "local" cable TV provider.

why do think Trump wanted to get his hands on it.

Grumble: The font size on the forums and this site in general got bigger. I was perfectly happy with the old one.

Webmaster clearly getting older and needs the bigger font in order to read the pages.

Certainly noticeable. I can read it easily without changing to my computer glasses.

See where I'm heading with this?

One shop refused my card because the card wasn't signed.

Embossing?

MacOS just got a new virus that steals your iCloud passwords, keychain & factor 2 authentication.

No, it's spring (according to Met office rules). But it's still below zero here, with a crystal-clear full moon in the night sky.

Our date with winter is set for Thursday, with up to 20 cm snow and warnings coming at us with increasing urgency. It's not much, by world standards, but quite enough to paralyse the British road network (and possibly more besides). I feel the need for a pre-emptive visit to the grocery store tomorrow.

No, Yes, No, Yes.

RustDesk is your savor.

Thanks! This looks like the best and easy to use and configure so far.

I downloaded it for Windows, Ubuntu and also for Android since it looks like it might come in handy to use on some old phones running BOINC to do remote control for updates, etc.

Update on my ongoing 'war' with AnyDesk:
After 2 more rounds of back and forth and allowing them to 'collect additional usage details' for a month.

* They insist by using BOINC on my PC's to connect to many different locations multiple times in a day, their software is being commercially used even if I only use their software one or two times per week.

My counter argument was "How can that be any different than if I was using the remote PC for extensive web browsing?"

...a winter snow storm...

Is there much difference from your summer snow storms? 😜

Lol winter for most of the USA.
In Dallas-Fort Worth Texas we rarely get any measurable snow in a calendar year. The current 10 year average is about 1 inch (2.5 centimeter).