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By the numbers: death of fixed greatly exaggerated

The slide in fixed line subscriptions has slowed, but was never as alarming as expected.
Written by Phil Dobbie, Contributor

Reports of the death of fixed line telephony have been overstated. In fact, connections are higher than they were back in 1990, and expensive mobile charges will see the home phone stick around for some time yet.

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With the astonishing rise in mobile phone connections over the last ten years, you'd have expected an equally as dramatic fall in fixed phone subscriptions, but that's not what happened. Whilst figures from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) show that the number of fixed line phones in 2008 were 17 per cent down on their peak in 2002, and any subsequent slide has been very slow indeed; enough to make any operatic death scene look positively expedient.

In the early Noughties, sustained demand for the fixed phone could have been put down to the growth of DSL — you needed the connection, so why not use it for voice, as well as data, particularly as many ISPs offered cut-price calls. Now, DSL growth has disappeared and mobile demand has also slowed (after all, how far do you go beyond 100 per cent penetration) and, perhaps, demand for fixed-phones will also level off.

This highlights the size of the "what next?" issue for telcos. New mobile subscriptions sustained the industry since the early Nineties, and the same from broadband in the last ten years. Now, as demand for all forms of connectivity has plateaued, the industry has to focus on operational efficiency, rather than coping with growth. Or they need to find something totally new that everyone wants in a hurry.

As for the fixed phone, its ultimate death will come through semantics, rather than any sudden drop in demand. When we're all hooked-up to fibre, Voice-over-IP will be the only mode of delivery; at which stage, it'll be impossible to report any meaningful subscription figures. But we can be sure that fixed voice will always be around.

Incidentally, these figures were accessed through Google's Public Data Explorer (PDE), whichstarted to feature ITU data last week. Now you can happily wile away the hours examining telecommunications subscription levels from anywhere in the world, from 1960 to 2011. Have fun.

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