man with old landline phone doing shush finger on lips secret

Landline Phones Are Still Relevant Today

May 31, 2024Phones Article

For some generations, the presence of a landline phone in their home was entirely normal. Those that grew up in the 1980s and 1990s or earlier will have been used to the phone ringing all around the house as someone called in order to speak to one of the inhabitants of the home.

Since the proliferation of the mobile phone, however, landlines have become less and less common. Although there are still plenty of homes around the United Kingdom that have a landline, they tend to ring less and less as people are called on their mobile devices instead. That has led many to ask the question: do we still need landlines?

The Argument to Keep Them

There are many older people for whom the use of a landline is crucial. They did not grow up with mobile phones, needing to change the way that they work in order to incorporate them into their lives. How many times have you tried to phone an older relative on their mobile phone and received no answer, largely because they’ve left their mobile in a different room or not taken it out with them, still not used to being contactable at all times?

They grew up calling others, and being contacted themselves, on a landline, safe in the knowledge that it would always be there and that they could be contacted using it in an emergency.

The idea of having to not only take a mobile phone with them when they go out but also having to charge it on a regular basis still seems entirely alien to them. It might be frustrating for younger people that an older relative can’t be reached, but that is how they’ve always lived.

Plans would be made and then stuck to, not changed at the last minute because it’s easy to text someone and say ‘Can we meet here instead?’ That is also somewhat by the by in terms of the argument to keep landlines in place. The more serious argument is that vulnerable people rely on them as an access to the outside world in more ways than one.

There are around two million people the United Kingdom who use personal alarms for incidents such as if they fall and can’t get back up or have some sort of accident. At the moment, such personal alarms use landlines in order to connect with the outside world, which is excellent as landlines don’t need electricity to work.

A switch to an entirely digital platform, known as Telecare’, would be problematic because power outages would make it impossible for such services to work. This, of course, puts vulnerable people in danger, which is what will happen if the switch to digital landlines continues without plans being put in place.

The Arguments to Scrap Them

school kids all standing around on mobile phones

The dictionary defines anachronism as ‘a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned’. It is difficult to argue against the idea that landline are anachronistic in nature.

They were of vital importance when it was the only way in which people could be reached or could reach out to communicate with others, but the invention and proliferation of modern technology means that that is no longer the case. Older people might be used to a landline, but there is nothing to stop them having a mobile phone plugged in and left where the landline used to be.

Even if there was some sort of power cut, the mobile would still operate for many hours if it had been left to charge in the meantime. Such phones wouldn’t need to be smartphones, with much more old-fashioned ‘dumb’ phones holding their charge for even longer.

Of course, the likes of Telecare devices tend to be located in specific places, such as the bathroom, which would not be possible for mobile phones that need to be charged all the time. That is to say nothing about the fact that Telecare services usually require nothing of the users other than pulling a chord, whereas a mobile phone would need them to dial the emergency services.

Plans are Being Put in Place

The plans to switch off the copper-based landlines in order to all but force people to move to internet-based services were due to be completed by the end of 2025. In the middle of 2024, however, British Telecoms confirmed that they would delay the move until the start of 2027 in order to give them enough time to ensure that vulnerable people would be protected in all circumstances.

It doesn’t mean that people couldn’t have landline phones still, but rather that such phones would require the internet to work and any sort of power outage, which can be common in rural areas, would stop such internet-based phones from being useable.

The Head of Security and Networks for BT, Howard Wilson, said that they weren’t just making the change for the sake of it. Instead, he said, “The urgency for switching customers onto digital services grows by the day because the 40-year-old analogue landline technology is increasingly fragile”.

The plan from the company is to put ‘resilient solutions’ in place for those that are dependent on landlines for their safety. This could include the likes of a free battery backup unit or a hybrid phone that is able to use both broadband and mobile networks to work, which should mean that they continue to work in the event of a power cut.

Companies responsible for offering landline services, which includes the likes of BT, Virgin and TalkTalk, agreed to a new charter that commits them to not switching customers over to the digital network unless they are confident that vulnerable people can be connected.

The reality is that few people need a landline in the modern age of mobile phones, but many people still need the safety and comfort from what landlines provide them, including the ability to reach the outside world in an emergency.

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