{"id":84627,"date":"2021-02-25T15:36:45","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T15:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wrappz.com\/blog\/?p=84627"},"modified":"2021-03-04T08:20:17","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T08:20:17","slug":"decline-of-the-landline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrappz.com\/blog\/decline-of-the-landline\/","title":{"rendered":"Decline Of The Landline: Brits Bid Goodbye To The Home Phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has perhaps never been a more important time for us all to stay in contact with one another than during the current coronavirus crisis. And, while there are so many different ways of communicating with friends and family, many people underestimate or simply forget the importance of having a good old catch up. We know WhatsApp group chats and iMessaging are great but we are all social creatures who are desperate to communicate through spoken words.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With the decline of phone boxes and home phones being well documented in recent years we thought we\u2019d explore people\u2019s sentiments towards home phones and find out how landline access was evolving in the UK.<\/p>\n

Attitudes towards landline phones<\/h2>\n

With the latest statistics from Ofcom<\/a> showing the time Brits spend on landline calls has almost halved since the start of the last decade, it is inevitable that home phones will play less of a role in our day-to-day lives in the future. In a bid to better understand people\u2019s landline habits we surveyed 100 people from across the UK. Rather predictably we found Brits are most likely to speak to their parents on a landline with 78 per cent of people saying they call their Mum or Dad\u2019s home phone the most. Grandparents are the second most likely recipients of a call on the landline followed by a friend in third.<\/p>\n

Being designers of phone cases<\/a> we recognise people are becoming increasingly reliant on technology but, 38 per cent of Brits did admit to still being in possession of an address book – you might have to explain to teenagers about what one of those is! It was a completely different story when people were asked about using a phone box though with a whopping 95 per cent of respondents saying they had never used one.<\/p>\n

When it came to explaining why they didn\u2019t have a landline or ended up getting rid of theirs, nine in ten people (90 per cent) cited the fact they had a mobile phone to be the main reason. Just 7 per cent of Brits said it was down to getting too many nuisance or sales calls while others admitted to only having a landline because it came with their broadband packages.<\/p>\n

Landlines to disappear from UK households in less than 50 years<\/h2>\n

Having built up a strong picture of people\u2019s sentiments towards home phones, we thought we\u2019d take a deep dive into data from Ofcom<\/a> to find out just how quickly landline usage was declining. Analysing data from the past six years we were able to reveal some fascinating findings.<\/p>\n

Our research found there are currently just less than 20.9 million households in the UK with an active landline, that\u2019s 74 per cent of all households. While this might sound like a high proportion of people are still in possession of a home phone, in 2015, 84 per cent of households had a landline. Although this increased to 85 per cent in 2016, the number of people with home phones has steadily dropped over the past five years and there are now 2.4 million fewer households with an active home phone (one they can receive or make a call from) than in 2016.<\/p>\n

Should landline access continue to decline at its current rate of 1.6 percent each year, in just 16 years time more than half of UK households will no longer have an active landline. By 2052 just a quarter of households will have a home phone with landlines completely disappearing from the UK in June 2067. That\u2019s in just 46 years time!<\/p>\n

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The regional breakdown in England<\/h2>\n

Of course, landline access is declining at varying rates across the country as well. Analysis of Ofcom\u2019s data reveals people in the East of England have been transitioning away from home phones the most. Over the last few years the number of households with an active landline in the East has dropped 3 per cent each year, a rate which is almost double the UK average of 1.6 per cent.<\/p>\n

With several areas in the East of England such as North Norfolk being home to some of the most ageing populations in the UK, this suggests it\u2019s not only the younger generation who are transitioning to a more digital way of communicating. In contrast, people in the East Midlands seem most reluctant to ditch their home phone with the number of households with an active landline declining at just 0.6 per cent each year. Perhaps surprisingly, the rate of decline in London falls directly in line with the UK average although this may be down to the fact many Londoners have already moved away from using a home phone.<\/p>\n