How many times in the last 5 years have I heard this statement? Countless.
The subscription price for fixed home numbers, although much lower than the subscription prices for mobile numbers, could not win the technological race (one device, mobile, for all).
OK, there is some merit in the unlimited number of minutes that mobile operators give in the packages (versus the 150 free minutes included in the monthly subscription of a fixed telephone line), but the transition from wired to wireless home phone accelerated the decline of the idea of fixed telephony.
Previously, with a landline phone, we could talk even when there was no electricity in the whole city, but with the switch to wireless phones, that was no longer possible. When the power goes out, the handset (even if the battery is fully charged) loses connection with the base and then you pick up the mobile phone.
If I'm going to charge my landline phone every day (as well as my cell phone), if I can't use it when there's no electricity and if I can't move more than 30m away from the base with it, what's the point?
I also succumbed to this trend of abandoning the idea of landline telephony.
First, we transferred our wired telephone line as a service to a cable operator (which was a big stupidity, because when there is no cable TV and Internet signal, we don't even have a telephone line), then two years ago, I switched to a package that does not include a telephone number.
Since doing this, I no longer have daily calls to the wireless phone from various telemarketers and false calls.
When I didn't use the landline more than twice a week, I didn't even notice that I was missing it.
But...
In business, I think the situation is a little different.
Although I hear the same narrative and attitude from the title of this post more often in business.
My work is such that I am closely connected with telecommunications, equally with the services of mobile and landline operators.
I am in charge of the administration (among other things) of mobile numbers and telephones, but also of the fixed telephony system in the company where I work.
And in that company, I defend the position that fixed telephony is necessary.
We have a PBX installed (the so-called home telephone exchange), on which we have been turning off an increasing number of extensions in the settings for the last year, due to the view that the PBX is unnecessary.
But, on that same PBX, there are several call center functionalities that are used by certain sectors in the company. First of all, the ICT sector in which I also work (for the Helpdesk call center).
"What's the point of my telephone extension when no one calls me on it... Well, I have a mobile phone, Viber Whatsapp... It's easier for me to communicate with my colleagues."
When we installed the PBX, we created a system so that by calling four-digit extensions depending on the country where the company's branch is located, you can instantly reach a colleague in another country through our PBX. Without paying minutes to landline operators for international calls.
Internet links are used for this, the same ones through which colleagues would communicate to call another colleague via Viber, but that Viber call cannot be picked up by another colleague in the office. While a call to a telephone extension can.
If you call Viber, everything remains in your two mobile phones, while you would have the possibility to record calls through the PBX...
And so, at the request of colleagues to dismantle his phone and turn off the extension, we are not overly happy and do it... But only after I tell him the story: "Why do I still use my landline and I don't intend to give it up."
It was here on Hive a while ago, a thread about using mobile phone headsets. Then each of us expressed our opinion about the quality of the new wireless headphones, about their features and usefulness.
I stated then that wired headphones are still my first choice.
The reason?
I don't want to have an unnecessary EMS near my head (and it is everywhere, even in the mobile device on which I am typing this post).
Likewise for a landline on a PBX.
In addition to the fact that I am in a position of higher level of support (for my colleagues, it means when they know that they can find me on a fixed number during working hours) I do not want to have long conversations with other colleagues except through the earpiece or speakerphone of a landline phone, which does not have any radiation. We are sufficiently irradiated at every step, so I use the opportunity wherever I can to reduce the impact on my body and head a little.
And that's why I still use a landline.
Dinosaur 😃
