Is it ‘RIP land line phones’?

With the Big three automakers and their bailout plea grabbing the headlines, the news that AT&T is slashing 20,000 jobs should have received more notice. If you were thinking that it’s because the telecom industry is facing a slowdown or because AT&T is posting huge losses; then you’re mistaken. The jobs being slashed are the ones in the land line business unit, whereas in other growing sectors like cellular service and its broadband internet service, AT&T has actually been recruiting.

According to an AT&T spokesperson, ‘The economic pressures are impacting spending by businesses and consumers on traditional wire line service’. For other service providers like Verizon and Sprint Nextel, things are not much different, with the cell phone business units doing much better than their land line counterparts. That speaks volumes about the changing preferences of consumers.

In the past few years, customers have been switching from their land line services to cell phone services due to mobility, convenience and practicality of the latter. Also, for a family of two or three with each one having a cell phone, the need to have a land line phone is obviated. Add to it the economic turmoil, which forces people to go into cost cutting mode; the first to face the axe is the land line phone.

It may still be too early to write an epitaph for land lines, but to say that they are on their way to the grave might not be a stretch. The figures here speak for themselves. About 61% of cell phone users in the US have cancelled their landline service altogether, while 27% have stopped using their landline phones to make calls. The rest of those retaining their landline phones use it for fax services, home security and to make emergency calls, according to a survey by research firm JD Power & Associates.

The trend is the strongest among those in the 18-24 age group, where 29% have largely shifted to mobile, while Gen X’ers and baby boomers are showing a slower shift towards cell phones. It’s no surprise that the Gen Y’ers are more comfortable using the cell phone as the gadget has been around as long as they can remember.

Moreover, the cell phone for Gen Y is not just a gadget making phone calls, but also a mobile entertainment tool to click pictures, send and receive emails, MMS, download ringtones, play free mobile games, download free mobile wallpapers and do much more. What’s clear is that all technologies have to reinvent themselves to survive and the phone is clearly in undergoing the metamorphosis that will keep the humble phone in our lives for the foreseeable future.