Why hardlines?

Wqaa

This was brought up by a friend of mine about the Matrix, why do we have to use hardlines? Now we can use cellphone to jack us out wherever we want but why, in the movies, did they have to use hardlines in specific locations. For example the first movie Cypher calls Tank on a public phone and Tank sends him to another location why couldn't he just use that phone?

**FrozenFyre**

That's just the thing- Cellphone's can be used for communication, but
Hardlines are needed to physically extract an RSI from the system, I
don't quite get how it works but only specific phones can be used as
exits because they are near or connected to a Hardline which is the
best and safest way to extract you from the Matrix. When we
auto-jackout it's the Operator carefully pulling us out of the Matrix
directly, which is why it takes a long time to do. Hope that makes
sense- Hardlines aren't completely necessary but they're the fastest,
safest way of leaving the Matrix.

**ManicV**

A hardline is a phone that has been modified by a redpill. I think volume 1 of The Matrix Comics has a story that shows a couple operatives rewiring a phone line to act as a hardline, or something along those lines.

From what I can tell, a hardline emits certain tones that interact with the code of a redpill's RSI, that allow for exiting the matrix or transporting around it. Since a bluepill is still hardwired to the simulation, the tones coming from a hardline would have no effect. If a bluepill picks up the receiver of a hardline, they probably won't hear anything and will assume the line is dead.

I would imagine each hardline would need to somehow be connected to a kind of broadcasting beacon in the real. This explains why hovercrafts need to be at "broadcast depth" in order to hack into the matrix. The ship gets within range of one of these beacons, and then broadcasts a signal. So in order for a new hardline to be created, it needs a beacon in the real to connect to.

**RemagDiv**

Cell phones are not part of the Matrix world and thus do not have a network address known to the Matrix software.

The hardlines inside the Matrix are analog and each have a distinctive network address for identification. The operator needs a network address that the Matrix operating system can follow. This is accomplished by calling the phoneline, and then must be answered for the network address to be passed back onto the hovercraft.

**Garu**

Excellent answer, Remag. I was thinking the same thing.

**ZippyTheSquirrel**

Mirrors have already been done. *cough* Alice in Wonderland.

Oh, yeah, cell phones....that's already been answered. Just popped in to make a random joke. Now I'm off! Whoosh!

**phi**

My answer is sort of like what RemagDiv said:

Think of the matrix like the network in a small business office. All the computers just plug in, get assigned an address and interact with the network and the internet dynamically, but due to the dynamic nature of the connections they could drop out at any time. Normally these connections are fine as small dropouts result in momentary lag. But if you want to send or recieve a large file on a non-standard port the risk of drop-out or being blocked by a firewall is rather high and some connections can not be made across the internet.

A hardline is a secure VPN connection with port mapping (a dedicated link between 2 computers that tunnels through networks and simulates a direct connection). Difficult to set up and rather selfish with resource usage, but essential to secure fast direct communications.

Mobiles are like the IM of the Matrix and will work for sending small amounts of data.
You see phones are meant to transmit sound and text (standard ports) but not people.
Hardlines are phones that have this static mapping and have been modified so that a person's RSI can be sent through.