The untimely death of the landline

I can count on the fingers of one hand the people I know who still have a landline telephone, and I am not among them. Getting one installed in my new home is feasible but why, my children ask, would I bother? I have a mobile phone, albeit a very basic one, and what more can a person need?

To anyone under the age of 50, retaining a landline seems like a fogey-ish affectation. Indeed, one of my daughters has a rotary-dial handset, not as a back-up phone but as an ironic décor item. Because if you’re wearing a belt, why have braces?

For mobile users there’s the back-up possibility of something called a cloud. Otherwise, nothing. You entrust your appointment diary, address book and photo collection to one device: your mobile phone. Neat and efficient, until it falls out of your pocket. Then it’s not just your phone that’s down the toilet. It’s your whole life.

A landline phone, on the other hand, can be drowned only if you’re very determined. It’s virtually impossible to lose. Neither will anyone mug you for it. And unlike the phones of my post-war childhood, installed in arctic hallways so as to discourage lengthy and costly conversations, a landline is now more likely to sit in majesty in your living room. It’s available when you need it, but not constantly buzzing and pinging where e’er you walk. You can get away from it. So, two cheers at the very least for landlines.

Hard to imagine, but it was once thought that telephones wouldn’t catch on. They seemed like an intrusion, an imposition. A bell rang and you were expected to respond like an anxious parlour maid. Was this progress? But gradually the imposition became a status symbol.