Dean Bubley

Comm Forecast No. 1: No More Landlines

This is interesting to me. The US appears to have a fairly unique attitude to "cutting the cord" which is not present in most other countries. (I'm from the UK). While there is generally fixed-mobile substitution elsewhere, there is typically much lower use of cable & ADSL tends to be the predominant means of delivering broadband, except somewhere like Japan where there's been a big push on fibre. Also, the distinction in numbering between fixed and mobile tends to mean that most people accept the validity of both, for different applications. In the UK, I've noticed BT adfvertising its fixed telephony service is being cheaper than many prepaid mobile tariffs, encouraging reverse mobile-to-fixed substitution.

However, one thing does seem fairly clear to me - copper is not going to disappear any time soon for calling *businesses* rather than consumers. While the very largest firms might use VoIP + copper, the average hairdresser or restaurant or travel agent seems unlikely to use cellular. In those cases, you want to call a place, not a person.

Dean Bubley