Could Cell Phones Replace Regular Phones?

JoseMonkey asks: "The reliability and quality of wireless telephones continues to improve, and the total cost of ownership and cost of use is steadily decreasing.In light of that, I'm starting to wonder if I could forget about conventional phones altogether and simply use my cell phone. Calling plans like AT&T Wireless Services' "OneRate" program make roaming charges a non-issue, and the cost of service is fairly reasonable. In fact, I'm having trouble thinking of reasons to keep my home phone. Can anyone think of a reason not to tell my local phone company to take a hike?" (Read on...)

Although something like this could happen, I think there are several reasons why we aren't-quite-ready-for-it-yet. Cellular coverage is spotty at best across the U.S. and I'm not quite sure how widespread coverage is in Europe (but the information would be appreciated). I mean, I have a new cell phone (a Nokia 6185) and there were times I couldn't make a call from the center of downtown Manhattan which mystified the hell out of me at the time (turns out my phone was somehow kicked out of the system).

Of course, when it comes to signal quality, I think that there are some cellular phones that sound better than your average land-line, but the place where your land-line will win hands down over any of the new wireless upstarts is reliability. On a landline phone, you pick the receiver up off the cradle and you get a dialtone (assuming you've paid the bill, of course). I'm sure many of you will agree that cellular isn't quite at that level yet, although it's getting there. I figure everything will change within a year or two that will make even today's best predictions meaningless.

So how long do you think it will take (if ever) before everyone has a cell phone and land lines become a thing of the past?

Comments

Elswhere on the globe...

[ruppel]

This is something that is already happening a lot and not so much in the western industrialized countries but more so in the third world countries where there is no telephone network to begin with. Governments in Asia and Africa find it cheaper to build a mobile network instead of upgrading, or in some cases actually starting from scratch, a conventional cable based network. Although the cost of an individual cell phone is astronomical in relative economic terms it is cheaper for an village in Africa to buy one cell phone than to to get a puplic phone booth for example.

On the other hand in industrialized countries the reasons for switching entirely to mobile phones are different but mostly also cost related. Countries where the mobile coverage reaches an acceptable range, and I personally can only talk about Finland where ist is darn close to 100%, there is really no drawback to having a cell phone regardless of where you live (plus the obvious advantages of the cell phones mobility).

Here in Finland the amount of housholds with only a cell phone and no hard line is rising steadily as well as in other European countries. The main reason being cheap phone calls. Whith the infrastructure of the mobile network in place, operators can start lowering the call prices as the investments that were needed to build the network are being paid back and the interest on them get less and less. The price difference in the monthly fee of a hard line and a mobile is enough to let you talk for about one hour on your mobile, admittedly not much, but with additional plans for eg. interoperator calls that can go up to three hours and then your only at the amount you'd have to pay for having the hard line to your home. I reacon the States still have some way to go before a significant price drop in the call charges happens since your operators are still building the network and that takes a lot of money.

One other big question which comes up in deciding whether to get rid of the hard line is the computer. Connecting to the net over a cell phone is... well it sucks. Here again students have the advantage since universities offer unlimited net access in some cases even in the campus living quarters. Other non-phoneline related solutions like cable modems are slowly making progress and in turn accelerate the rate at which people give up their hard lines (with a cable modem and a mobile phone you really don't need a hard line anymore).