The Decline of the Landline 435
Death Metal writes "The phone network is thus not just a technical infrastructure, but a socioeconomic one. The more Americans abandon it to go mobile-only or make phone calls over the Internet, the more fragile it becomes: its high fixed costs have to be spread over ever fewer subscribers. If the telephone network in New York State were a stand-alone business, it would already be in bankruptcy. In recent years it has lost 40% of its landlines and revenues have dropped by more than 30%."
why would you ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hope Not! (Score:1, Insightful)
I've been through one too many hurricanes in my life and the one thing that worked when all hell was breaking loose outside was the landline. When all else failed I was, more often than not, able to still get a dial tone.
Re:why would you ... (Score:5, Insightful)
One compelling reason is quality. For instance, I had some job interviews recently, and I'd never do an interview over a cell phone. You worry about the calls cutting out, cuts here and there in the quality, and not being able to hear a question over the phone just looks bad.
(In)Stability could be the cause (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't get dsl without it (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't get dsl where I am without subbing to a landline as well. A cable modem isn't really an option either since we have Directv and wouldn't qualify for any bundling deals from the cable company. If I could do dry line dsl I would in an instant, but I get to pay an extra $13/mo for my internet access instead.
Re:why would you ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Businesses still need land lines unless you plan on giving everyone a work cell phone or have them share phones.
Or, you know, just get VoIP.
Re:Decline of the Landline (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be OK for the landlines to be removed from service (lotta copper there, to recycle), but only AFTER the wireless networks are robust enough for people to stay connected in emergencies.
Re:why would you ... (Score:5, Insightful)
My two 5.8 GHz cordless phones--one for my work line, and one for my home line--sound worlds better than my cell phone. Most importantly, they don't have the latency and echo that is so common on all cell phone calls I've ever had.
What's worst is any call where there's more than one cell phone call involved. People are always talking over each other and that real-time cadence that's so nice about in-person and land-line calls just goes away. It reminds me of back when a significant amount of intl'l calls went over satellite when I was a kid; it was impossible to have a normal conversation.
But back to my cordless phones: unless you are in a dense urban environment where everyone else is using the same channels as you on their cordless phones, or unless you're using out of date technology like 2.4 GHz phones that interfere with 802.11x, static is a non-issue. Oh yeah, I guess there are probably really cheap ones with bad transmitters, but I bought one of my phones at Costco, one at Radio Shack and spent less than $100 on each of them four and six years ago.
Finally, my office is in the finished basement of my house. If I tried to have a conference call with clients using my cell phone, I'd get dropped calls 90% of the time.
Well obviously... (Score:3, Insightful)
Your neighbor's landlines weren't actually landlines, but went through the air - e.g. over telephone poles.
If it goes UNDER the ground, nothing short of a cataclysmic earthquake/landslide should be able to put it out of commission.
Plus, in case of an emergency, it can be used as a power source.
Poor service: Guaranteed a profit by law (Score:5, Insightful)
The decline of the landline is not due solely to changing usage patterns and technology but rather due to the anti-customer regulatory and business environment for landline phones.
A poster up thread was perhaps more insightful than he realized when stating that the problem with a landline is that telemarketers keep calling. After the MFJ, incoming toll was highly profitable for local exchanges, and they encouraged incoming toll, and lobbied to protect telemarketers, and fought things like caller ID.
And in the wake of the MFJ, phone service as a business changed from being a benevolent and responsible (if bureaucratic) utility to being a cost-driven race to the bottom. Service suffered. Innovation suffered. Prices for local telephone service went up. In the last few years I've received a disconnect notice for paying my phone bill two weeks late, I've been charged a $60 fee for the company to repair their own facilities (by a CLEC who said it was in their tariff because the ILEC charged them and they had to cover costs), I've had customer service reps hang up on me, and I've had service that was at best no more reliable than that provided 30 years ago.
And for this privilege I pay approximately $45 a week for a basic service bundle including caller ID and long distance. That is slightly more than I pay for my mobile phone. And is it somehow a premium service worthy of a premium price? Most assuredly not.
Technologically, the wired carriers should have an edge. The technologies are identical until the last mile. In the last mile, the wired carrier has essentially unlimited capacity and higher reliability. But that doesn't make up for the poor service and bad public policy upstream.
Dodo (Score:3, Insightful)
It has its uses, just not for me. I have been landline free for half a decade now and have never looked back. Pretty much two things lead to this:
1) I don't want to pay two big bills thanks. This has a lot to do with how our payment is structured, and how our telcos really rip us off. Reduce the costs, combine billing, etc... if you want to solve this one. Fault is with greedy telcos.
2) I don't want 10 calls a day from telemarketers. Near the end I was getting about twice as many calls from telemarketers as I was real people. Why am I paying for someone to advertise to me and wasting my time and annoying me? Why? Telemarketers have been taking advantage of the system for years and it has gotten progressively worse. Laws need to be put into place. They tried too little too late... and to top it off it is pretty toothless and unenforced with most just ignoring the no call lists. So this is partly the fault of the regulators, and party the greedy telcos again....
I bet if you fix both those issues many will either keep their landline or go back to having both.
Well Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the landline would just compete with the cell network, not as many people would be turning it off.
I mean, if I could make my landline phone ring different tones for different callers, block calls from whoever I don't want to talk to (I'd be downloading the whole range of "Who called me" perpetrators from the internet), forward the phone to another phone remotely, either over the internet or over another phone, have voicemailboxes that would decode the voice, create text, and e-mail it to me at work or text it to me on a cell, and all the other features anyone can think of, then... maybe it'd be useful enough to actually want to hang onto.
I keep it because its WAAAAAY more reliable than my cell, but it could stand a lot of 21st century upgrading.
Re:why would you ... (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as the whole 9 yards goes, I've just re-instated a landline number after attempting to live without one for the last 2 months. Why? Because suddenly my mobile bills rocketed! I live in the UK and make a lot of calls to Ireland, Australia, continental Europe and the US. These aren't business calls, these are personal calls to friends around the world. Going back to a landline is a whole lot cheaper in these cases.
Yes, I could have purchased a cheap rate call card and used that from my mobile, however this still meant my overseas friends needed to call my mobile number, so more expensive for them.
Yes, I could have used a VOIP service, and indeed some of my friends have Skype accounts and we do communicate that way. However, many of my friends are not tethered to their computers all day/night or own a fancy pants mobile phone that allows one to install Skype.
Overall I figured that if I wanted the whole 9 yards, including the ability to phone overseas cheaply and have my friends phone me cheaply as well, having a landline number was a better option.
Re:Decline of the Landline (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why would you ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy to say. I live in a 200k+ population area. My parents live ~2.5 miles from the nearest AT&T store and maybe 3.5 from the nearest verizon store. They live in a solidly suburban area.
With verizon they were lucky to get 1 bar inside their house. With at&t, they have to turn off 3g to get any service, and regularly miss calls. Have tried Verizon, Alltel, and now AT&T. Their whole neighborhood is a deadzone for at least a ~.5 mile to 1 mile radius... Just saying "live someplace where you get 5 bars and you don't have this problem" is NOT an answer.
Re:Decline of the Landline (Score:3, Insightful)
"Anyone who truly wants to "stay connected" in an emergency" ...needs to get an amateur radio license and appropriate equipment to keep their batteries charged.
They should also obtain a CB radio, also wonderfully useful (just for listening) if they travel.
Get two CBs if you want a local connection. I also have a couple of inverters, and misc. cables, car battery terminals, etc so I can swap batteries from my vehicles to keep them charged.
Re:why would you ... (Score:3, Insightful)
That only works for internal calls, how were you planning on connecting to the public phone system. You just can't wave your magic VoIP wand at the phone company and expect to get a connection.
Gee, if only someone would offer a VoIP services for businesses [twcbc.com].
You forgot 911. (Score:3, Insightful)
Read this article [usatoday.com]. Basically, 911 system wasn't designed for cellular/cell phones.
Re:why would you ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Studies show that the human brain does not multitask. If the brain tries to split itself between two tasks, it will devote 40% to one task, 40% to another task, and 20% wasted on trying to juggle back-and-forth.
The brain is not a CPU.
That said rather than text my pals, I'd rather talk to them. The human voice conveys more information than a bunch of text, and the voicecall is the same cost as text message.