We may very well be witnessing the beginning of the end for landline phones. Many people are opting out of having a landline phone in their house in favor of having just a cellphone. This brings up an important question, namely whether landline phones will need to exist at all in the future.

Overseas

Many people overseas aren’t even bothering to install landlines anymore. Between services like Skype and traditional cellphone service, there’s generally no point to getting a landline system installed in areas that don’t have them yet. These areas are literally jumping an entire technological advancement. They are going straight from no communication at all right to cellphones or VoIP type solutions. This has made many people in more developed countries wonder why we bother with landlines at all anymore.

The Expense of Cellphones

Some people might object to this discussion, saying that landline phones will be around for a long time since cellphones are just too expensive, and many poorer families won’t be able to afford anything but landlines for any serious amount of communication. But the truth is that this is changing rapidly. There are now actually free phone options available for those who qualify. It might surprise you, but the government is actually issuing free phones and free phone service to those fall under around 150% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines, depending on what are you’re in. So even cost won’t be enough to necessarily save landline phones in the long term.

An Argument for Landlines-Canada

Apparently Canadians are still pretty attached to their landlines. A recent study showed that up to 67 percent of Canadians polled say that they are still primarily contacted by their friends and family through a home landline number.  Having percentages in the 60s is hardly a ringing support for landlines though, especially when this amount has obviously been eroding for years and years. Canadians like their landlines for now, but will that really lost in the face of all of the new technology that’s coming out. Technology solutions like Skype could allow family members and friends to contact each other completely for free in most situations.

The 911 Problem

Another argument people have made for keeping landlines is the problem of emergency services and the “911” number. In the beginning, mobile phones weren’t able to give your location to emergency responders right away when you called 911 the way that it would I you called from a landline. But these days the GPS signal in your phone will give your location to responders pretty quickly when used in conjunction with triangulation techniques.

Other Concerns

Some people also complain about call quality, trying to claim that landlines just have a better quality than other options.  There’s been a lot of debate on this topic, with no real clear consensus. The argument that it’s the wireless nature of cellphones that hurts call quality seems a bit moot at the least, since some of them actually route through cables on the Internet now.

No matter what happens, it’ll be interesting to see how the situation unfolds in the war between cell phones and landlines.