As technology gets better and better, more and more people rely on it. Each year, companies release their newest products, or newest editions of a product, on the market. Newest toys and newer gadgets have consumers up on their toes every time a company announces a release of their latest device. Cellphones alone developed tremendously and increased in usage this past decade. These new cellphones are opening a door to communication like never before. According to the Nielsen 2010 Media Industry Fact Sheet there are over 223 million U.S. mobile phone users over the age of 13. More than 26% of households in the U.S. have only a wireless phone (Snider, 2011). As consumers continue to move to wireless, states are passing, or considering, laws to end the requirement that phone companies provide everyone landline service (Sylvain, 2012). The enormous increase in wire-less technology is pushing landline phones into obsolesce.
According to Gebeloff (2011), nearly 40 percent of all adults living in poverty use only cellphones, compared with about 21 percent of adults with higher incomes who use both cellphones and landlines. Cellphones have become more affordable, thus households in poverty, instead of having only landlines, switched to having cellphones only. Also, forty-seven percent of house renters were wireless-only, compared with 15 percent of owners.
Another factor is age. The older generation has a higher need for landlines, while the younger generation got so used to cellphones that when they move out of their parent’s house, they see no need to get a landline of their own. The younger generation of Americans is growing up in a society where cellphones, laptops, and Wi-Fi are as abundant as bread and water. This new dependency on technology prunes the younger generation to become more accustomed to it. A decade ago, children told their parents that they wanted the latest My Little Pony or a new stack of Uno cards for a Christmas present. Today, children want anything to do with the Internet and anything else connected to it. This great change requires the older generation to adapt as well as re-focus their attention on how to reach the youngsters. This is a challenge for the telephone companies as well. And so, landline companies should focus their services towards older generations, households that have their own properties, and younger generations that have higher income.
During the years, landline services have been declining in popularity for a couple of reasons. One of the most important reasons is the advances in technology of cellphones. When cellphones first came out, they were aimed at higher income families that could afford a portable phone. As time went by, cellphone became a part of everyone’s life. Texting and internet usage have become so popular that people who have a cellphone use it a lot more than a landline. Others don’t even see a need for a landline because a cellphone offers everything that a landline offers plus hundreds more. There are a lot of options when buying a cellphone and different plans for each individual person and their needs.
One of the suggestions to get landlines back into popularity would be to develop new models of the landlines and the released phones for them, and to improve existing ones to attract and keep customers. One idea for improving the model would be to develop and install an extension. This extension exists so that callers could reach a certain person of each household. For example, many businesses, school districts, and recreational services use this system. By dialing the designated number, a caller could contact and reach the person of their interest by using the extension system. Why bother the rest of the office when the person needed can be reached with just a press of a button? A home is not an office, but there could be a similar affect and an easier way of communication. The people that have a home office, the ones that do their business at home, or
