There is a general movement in our modern society away from cables and towards wireless technologies that are more portable and versatile in their applications. Indeed, with the advent of the mobile phone, it was predicted in earlier decades that the home phone line would not last long – but in truth, domestic telephone lines will remain useful for the foreseeable future.
But why? Whilst mobile network coverage and service fidelity left much to be desired in the early days, many people who live in urban environments now experience very few service blackouts, if any at all. You would be forgiven for thinking that mobile telecommunications developments have rendered terrestrial telecoms services obsolete. Nevertheless, you would be wrong. Although mobile network technologies are moving in a direction where this is no longer necessarily the case, for the time being at least fibre optic cables offer considerably higher data transfer rates than wireless equivalents. This means that many households will benefit from having a fixed line connection to enable internet access, for example, or television services.
Another feature of a terrestrial telephone line that contributes towards a general reluctance to do away with phone lines completely is the fact that domestic telephone handsets tend to be far more comfortable than their mobile counterparts. This is because they can be made larger than mobile phones, often incorporating higher quality speakers and microphones, because they do not have to be quite so portable. Particularly for longer call durations, this makes using a landline an attractive alternative to using a mobile phone.
As an added incentive, many domestic telephone operators offer free landline to landline calls for their customers. This means that mobile phone users can make long calls to relatives and loved ones from home without expending valuable inclusive minutes on mobile phone contracts.