Goodbye, post office. Goodbye, checks. Goodbye, books. And now…goodbye, landline phones!!
Consider these statistics from 2009:
• Nearly one out of every seven American households received all or almost all calls on wireless phones despite having a landline phone in the home.
• Wireless subscriptions have risen from 34 million (1995) to 270 million (2008), a 700 percent increase.
• More than one out of every five American homes got rid of their landline phone service in favor of wireless service.
We used to have no choice when it came to our phone provider. If we wanted to call people, we used our home phones. And we paid whatever astronomical charges the phone company charged. Local calls were reasonable. But long distance calls? Forget it!! When I moved to Florida as a teenager, it cost me an arm and a leg just to keep in touch with friends and family back home in New Jersey. Phone companies back then took advantage of you because they knew you didn’t have a choice.
Cell phones became available to the public in the 1980’s, and everything changed. Only then was the phone companies’ monopoly broken. Only then did prices finally get more competitive. Were cell phones expensive at first? Sure. But technology improved and so did prices.
There is absolutely no good reason to have a landline phone anymore. You can now get a cell phone plan with unlimited everything – web, talk, text – starting as low as $50 per month. And, through the power of technology – drum roll, please – you can carry the phone with you wherever you go. Imagine that!!
Most people keep their landlines phones simply because they’ve always had them. In reality, you’re probably paying double charges for a service that you don’t need anyway. Many businesses are even getting rid of landlines in favor of new options like WiFi and VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) – and they’re saving hundreds of thousands of dollars doing it.
The only reason I can think of to have a landline phone at all these days is in case of emergencies: power outages can cause problems at cell towers. But that’s likely to change in the near future with advancements to mobile technology. So, you better sign up for an unlimited cell phone plan if you haven’t already, because the days of the landline phone are nearly behind us. Pretty soon, ready or not, landline phones are going to be as scarce as pay phones.
LINKS:
You Sleep When You Die – Ready or Not, Here It Comes: Goodbye, Post Office
You Sleep When You Die – Ready or Not, Here It Comes: Goodbye, Checks
You Sleep When You Die – Ready or Not, Here It Comes: Goodbye, Books
ACA International – Wireless and Landline Phones
Ha! Maybe in 50 years we’ll be saying that about airplanes — when we will simply transform ourselves to another location. (Beem me up Scotty!)
You Came Through Jordan Zimmerman:
It’s disruptive, both personally and professionally, but there are many industries and services that are experiencing a once in a decade, maybe once in a century change.
Traditional landlines are definitely in transition, especially in developing countries where governments and private industries will never be able to finance deployment of the infrastructure necessary to provide “wired” communication services.
You might want to follow this story with a related topic, goodbye phone call, since most of the upcoming generations seem to prefer not calling at all. I remember reading, text message usage is growing faster than calling minutes, even on cell phones.
Let’s not forget, the recent revolutions in the Middle East were not fomented with a phone call, but rather with a Tweet and a Facebook post.
I’m confident the lack of verbal interaction will have consequences in the future, probably not positive, but for now communication is definitely taking a path other than verbal communication.
I’ll be waiting anxiously for the next in the “Goodbye” series and suggesting to my friends—not in a landline phone call of course—to keep watching for your posts as well. Maybe the gasoline fueled internal combustion engine?
Another great article Jordan:
You seemed to be “ahead of the curve,” on your Demand Media story “Future of Writing” from April 2010. Don’t forget to include it as part of the “Goodbye” series.
In the event you missed the story, Demand Media went public in January 2011 and ” … reported a profit of $1 million on Tuesday,” from the NY Times.
Waiting for the next installment of “Goodbye” too!
Ready or Not, Here It Comes: More brain tumors!