So long to the landline

So Debrett’s has really got behind the latest technology by issuing a guide to the appropriate use of the mobile phone, or rather, ten commandments. The oldies are warned that young people take fright at an unexpected call – text first to see if it’s convenient – and the young are told that they should give a caller their undivided attention on the basis that it’s perfectly obvious if you’re doing something else and ‘This can be very alienating for the recipient, who feels marginalised and deprioritised’.  

That’s all very well and bears out the weird ways communication is going. My daughter, 17, says she’d only call someone unannounced if the recipient were that sort of person – ‘you’re either a call person or a text person and most people are text – and if you knew the person really, really well’. So, if you thought that people are using smartphones for anything except the actual purpose of a phone, viz, making calls, you’re right. 

But hold on. There was once a perfectly useful means of communication which prioritised voice calls: the landline. And it was news to me until a couple of weeks ago that it was actually going out of business. Not that BT put it quite like that in its letter. ‘Good news’, it chirruped. ‘Landlines are here to stay’. Except, it turns out, they’re not. Landlines in my area are being phased out right now. The old analogue system is being replaced with a digital system. Out go the old copper wires – which, when you even mention them, sound archaic – to be replaced with God-knows-what wifi or mobile network set-up. Or as the guidance notes: ‘This means that existing hardware and infrastructure that relies on this technology will no longer function. Instead, you’ll need handsets that can use internet protocol (IP) technology to transmit voice in a digital format using a broadband connection when you make or receive a phone call.’

So, in order to make a call on something resembling a landline, you need a broadband connection? That sort of defeats the object of the thing as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know about you but my broadband doesn’t always work. And the point of a landline was that it was a reliable means of communication, including when the internet is down and I can’t find my mobile phone – which happens quite a bit. The most alarming thing is that you can’t make emergency calls either when you don’t have an internet connection. 

The thing about the demise of landlines is that it’s pretty well impossible to get hold of anyone easily without it. Once upon a time, you could call a company and get put through to an actual phone on an actual desk with an actual person sitting at it. Now, if you can find a number for a company, it’s not that easy. What used to be the operator tells you that there aren’t numbers for named individuals anymore; might you get in touch by email? Except, the point of calling is probably that you can’t get a response by email. People are inaccessible if they want to be in the absence of a landline.