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 bitsper second).
The POTS network is also called the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
POTS should not be confused with pot, an abbreviation of potentiometer.
