Household with landlines continue to decline

More Canadians than ever are cutting the cord on their landlines. Statistics Canada says that last year, 21% of all households solely relied on cell phones. And it’s no longer just the younger generation that’s hanging up on the home phone.

(“Why did you get rid of your landline?”) “It cost too much. I just didn’t think it was necessary”.

Stats Canada says in 2008, 8% of all Canadian households relied exclusively on cell phones. In 2013, that number jumped to 21%.

Ken Chase is with Operator Heavy Computing: “I think it’s mostly that communications is one on one instead of people calling somone’s house”.

Operator of internet consultancy “heavy computing” Ken Chase says cell phones are a more personal way of communicating than landlines: “Text messaging supplants a good number of very simple phone calls that could otherwise bother you. You can have a very concise conversation that doesn’t interrupt what you’re doing”.

But mobile devices aren’t always reliable — batteries die, reception can be low — for the forgetful, cell phones are easy to lose.

Ken Chase: “Where the simplicity of a phone it just works. You don’t drop the call, you don’t get static. The quality seemed to still be better back on landlines back in the day”.

Still, 83 percent of Canadian households have a cell. But as of 2013, only 56 percent had a landline.

This woman ditched hers four years ago: “Just cause I’m not home very often. It’s easier than maintaining two voicemails because you got 30 emails and 50 passwords”.

“We’re actually in the process of debating whether it makes sense or not. But the one reason my wife and I considered keeping a landline is that soon our kids are going to be old enough to babysit and we want to make sure they can access emergency services”.

If one day the family phone completely vanishes Ken says: “That copper wire that’s running to all the buildings and all the houses is far more valuable as high speed bandwidth conduit than a very low speed voice connection”.

Chase says phone and internet companies will make lucrative use of the leftovers.

Chase says he gives the landline another 20 years — except in specialized cases. In some rural areas, he says it’s easier to use analogue phones as it’s difficult to replace a landline with good quality data. There are remote areas north of Sudbury for example, where people are still using party lines. So the landline isn’t dead quite yet.