It's probably safe to say that a large group of people resent paying line rental charges for a telephone line purely for the sake of gaining broadband services. Of course, unless you use some kind of wireless broadband technology available in your area there will be a line of one type or another delivering your broadband zeroes and ones. However, companies have traditionally (until recently) sold broadband with a seemingly separate significant but unavoidable cost added on top for telephone services and a telephone line.
A new survey reveals that the telephone part of the service equation is increasingly irrelevant to UK customers. OnePoll, sponsored by Relish wireless 4G broadband, discovered that a huge 60 per cent of respondents had only taken a landline connection in order to gain access to broadband.
With very large scale mobile phone ownership across the UK, many people have plentiful amounts of free talk time provided in contract bundles, PAYG bundles, 'goody bags' or similar. Now 0800 numbers are actually free on mobile it is very rare that I will pick up a landline handset in our house.
Other interesting figures garnered from the survey include;
- 20 per cent of users don't know their landline telephone number
- 36 per cent of those surveyed only use their landline telephone once a month or less
- 33 per cent expect that all landline calls will be automated and sales 'spam' calls
- 22 per cent don't answer the landline if it rings
- 22 per cent think that they will be landline free within 2 years
That last point about expecting to be landline free might include those who will use 4G mobile broadband and tethering for all their internet connectivity needs and others with the likes of Virgin fibre in their area now, or on the way. In summary "the British public are desperate to say goodbye to the landline," says Relish Head of Brand and Marketing, Bridget Lorimer, and it looks like a good fifth of them are optimists.
The OnePoll UK survey didn't have a very large sample number at only 2,000 respondents.
Source: ISP Review (via Neowin)
