Cell Phones Make Another Move On The Landline
from the getting-there dept
The shift away from landline phones to mobile phones has been growing for several years, as many people find landline service redundant. Fixed-line operators have done very little to update landlines and keep them relevant, preferring instead to rely on inertia to maintain subscriptions, alongside forcing landlines into bundles or making them a requirement for DSL. This has worked, to some extent, especially as landlines still did hold some benefit for families, or in situations where people wanted to call a place as opposed to a particular person. But mobile operators are innovating and narrowing this gap. For instance, MetroPCS has announced a new "family line" product, which gives families a single number alongside their additional phone number. When this number is called, all the family members' individual handsets ring, and anybody who answers gets placed into conference with the caller, mimicking a landline with multiple extensions. The number can also be used within the family to enable easy conference calls. It's not a huge technological breakthrough, and it's also not a service that's likely to be a big deal to tons of users -- but it does illustrate how even with as old a product as voice, the mobile side of the telecom business is trying to push forward, while landline voice remains largely stagnant.
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Filed Under: landlines, mobile phones
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I am wondering why Sprint hasn't developed a similar product yet since they no longer have landlines?
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Re:
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My car warranty is about to expire.
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Re: Cheaper
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Ummm taxes
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Re: Ummm taxes
Most of those are probably just names tossed on funny hidden fees and slapped on your bill under the "taxes" section.
While I do not doubt you would love to bash Obama, I somehow doubt these taxes mystically first appeared after he took office.
Try calling up your phone company and actually calling them out on this shit. They really do just place random technical sounding fees under the taxes section in order to charge you more without looking like they're evil.
When you ask them about it, be sure they send you the actual information on the law and everything. Don't let them get away with a simple "the law says so". They are ripping you off. And your only response is to blame Obama. Sad.
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Re: Ummm taxes
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here, it's the mobile companies that are gouging the customers for every cent they can, while the land lines are actually [so far as i can tell, I'm not the one paying for it here :D] fairly cheap. free local calling for residential customers on the land lines too. side effect of [intelligent] regulation of the old phone company based on the fact that it became a monopoly, if only by default, when it stopped being part of the government owned post office and became a separate company.
also, New Zealand does not have cable television [or, at least, didn't until very recently, when it was provided as part of an upgrade to the land line phone/DSL system, and is basically a clone of the satellite tv available here], so there's no cable companies involved. instead, the phone companies have always provided the internet access. you don't get the land line as part of the internet deal, you get the DSL as part of the landline deal. interestingly, there's not much competition for the phone companies, but there's a Lot of competition in the retail sector for internet access. [wholesale internet is still basically under monopoly control by the aforementioned telephone company, because none of it's competitors have a Complete national network yet.]
that said, i have a friend in Finland, apparently it's really uncommon to find a landline there at all :S. most people i know here have cell phones, and the younger people use them for text messaging and the like, but most people seem to look at the 'mobile' part of the name [cellular phones, abbreviated to 'mobile'. go figure.] and think 'right, if i'm at home, people can call me there, so i don't need the mobile on draining it's battery'.
again, free local residential calling may have something to do with it, as might stupidly high mobile charges. it gets better though: they charge even More to call a mobile from a landline.
be a long time before the mobile replaces the landline completely here, especially as the cables are being upgraded from the old copper lines to fiber optics over the next couple of years.
that said, it's always nice to see nifty features like that. wonder how many people will actually bother using it?
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If it wasn't for DSL...
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If it wasn't for DSL...
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Dell Phones Don't Work Where I Live
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taxed to death
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Re: taxed to death
See my above reply.
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Brialliant service
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dangerous Tofu
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