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Will mobile phones ever replace office and home landline phones?

gfesta
Level 1
Level 1

It has long been predicted that mobile phones will replace office and home landline phones.  This trend began to materialize in the consumer market in the late 90s in North America when the cellular market moved away from a duopoly and towards an open market.  As new service providers entered the market, competition to add subscribers drove down rate plans to a point where they became a cost effective landline phone replacement. Despite this market disruption, landline replacement never became mainstream.

Is it because landline prices became more cost effective and bundled with other services? Is it due to cellular coverage challenges? Or is simply because people are accustomed to using the phone?  How do you envision this materializing if the office and what challenges to you anticipate?

Gerard

Unified Communications Solutions Marketing

2 Replies 2

gmcgill
Level 1
Level 1

Gerard,

You touched on several of the issues. Certainly, VoIP-based services have cut into the traditional land line footprint and cellular coverage is a tremendous problem for anyone living in a population center of fewer than five million people. The suburbs of most cities have notorious coverage gaps which may never be addressed.

You may as well ask why Telco-based voicemail never replaced answering machines on those same landlines. Since a home answering machine is built into most land line phones now, one may wonder why the service is even still offered.

For urban populations, I can see portable devices completely replacing home land lines within a few years. I say portable because I believe that WiFi will surpass cellular quickly in the urban environment. Cellular may become a backup technology for use when one is visiting grandma out at the farm where they don't have WiFi. I expect WiFi service to be mostly free within a few years as companies, communities and muncipalities all try to keep customers and citizens happy and loyal.

As to the penetration of these portable devices into the workplace as a primary communications device, I see the need for a docking station and 100% seamless transition from corporate WiFi, Public WiFi and, as a backup, cellular. And, to be clear, 100% seamless means zero user keystrokes. The docking station may not be obvious but millions of them are sold to iPod users for a reason - the iPod has no speakers. I suspect speakerphones, headsets and large readable displays will continue to be a popular accessory.

Greg

Gerard,


This is a great question that comes up in almost every other customer discussion. I think at least in the office environment, the change over the next few years is likely to be a greater mix of devices like Greg also mentioned. That mix of device will I think vary by company, vertical and functional area probably be driven by the ease of use, greater need for productivity while keeping costs in control. Just taking an example from the manufacturing vertical which is my area of familiarity, R&D team members who often spend a lot of time on their desks while, I think continue to prefer landlines or soft-phones depending on the cost/ease-of-use trade-offs. Corridor Warriors (corporate IT teams) and Manufacturing plant-floor workers like process/maintenance engineers need a device which is low cost as well as mobile and I think devices like wi-fi IP phones and dual mode phones will probably make inroads in these groups. Plant-floor workers and managers in particular have little use for soft-phones or land-lines since they spend so much time away from their desks. And in many mannfuacturing facilities mobile phones either don't work or are not allowed. And of course in Sales given how much time the employees spend outside the office, mobile phones will continue to be the device of choice. Cost considerations could drive greater penetration of dual-mode phones into the sales functions.

It would be interesting to find out how other organizations and groups are thinking about this issue.

Abhay

Customer Business Transformation, VTG

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