The Land Line: Are Its Days Numbered?

There was once a “Dilbert” comic strip in which Dilbert, feeling his technological superiority over the common man, saw a business card and noted that the number on the card was a landline. Dilbert observed—not without a hint of smugness—that such a thing “must be handy for when someone calls from 1993.” Dilbert's disdain for the landline isn't limited to this, however, and there are a growing number of folks that seem to agree. It's getting to the point where some are asking if the landline's days are numbered.

It's not just comic strip disdain that's coloring perceptions—companies like AT&T are seen as having a clear interest in ditching the landline as well. AT&T is currently fighting a battle with Illinois legislators, seeking to overturn state requirements that landlines be maintained and the copper wire connection be clearly established. AT&T would sooner focus on what it notes customers want, like cellphones and broadband, and is thus forced to divert capital to something comparatively few users actually want, but are largely required to keep.

However, there are still those who fight on the landline's side. Those like the AARP note that there are clear issues involved in AT&T's plans. Issues like sound quality and service reliability, as well as the cost to users. Should AT&T be permitted to throw off the shackles of state requirements, then some users will lose connectivity altogether, users like ruralites, lower-income users, and those with special needs. As AARP spokesman Gerardo Cardenas notes, six out of 10 adults in the United States still rely on landlines, and under the terms of laws like those in Illinois, major carriers like AT&T are designated as “carriers of last resort,” or those carriers required to maintain analog phone service in regions where people actually live.

Should AT&T be permitted to pull out, critics allege, AT&T and those like it would likely pull out completely as well, leaving those aforementioned population segments with nothing in the way of connectivity instead of the minimums now available. AT&T notes that there are an increasing number of cellphones available and used in the regions—one study noted that there were only 1.3 million residential users using traditional phone technology in Illinois today, while wireless subscribers went from 5.6 million in 2001 to 12.8 million at the end of 2013.

This is a difficult issue because those involved are so familiar with each side of the argument. Rural-dwellers know that it's difficult, if not outright impossible, to get high-speed Internet access. So if the “carrier of last resort” principle is removed, there's little to stop companies from pulling out outright, providing the same excuses of expense and difficulty that are often heard whenever the question of getting high-speed Internet access comes into play. Meanwhile, to a certain extent, the companies are right; it's not easy or cheap to get access to the comparative handful of houses that dot the landscape in the countryside; the same things that provide quiet nights of peaceful stargazing in a landscape not saturated with light pollution make it difficult and expensive to run a lot of fiber optic connections to said houses. If not for the law forcing the companies' hands, the countryside might well have been abandoned long ago.

The question here is, who should prevail? The companies that provide service, or those who would be customers if companies were to provide? One side must lose here, and that doesn't make for a good situation for anyone concerned.

Edited by Alisen Downey