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Ask Slashdot: Do You Still Need a Phone At Your Desk?

Posted by samzenpus on from the dial-U-for-useless dept.

First time accepted submitter its a trappist! writes "When I started my career back in the early 1990s, everyone had a 'business phone' phone on their desk. The phone was how your co-workers, customers, friends and family got in touch with you during the business day. It had a few features that everyone used — basic calling, transfer, hold, mute, three-way calling (if you could figure it out). This was before personal mobile phones or corporate IM, so the phone was basically the one and only means of real-time communication in the office. Flash forward 20 years. Today I have a smart phone, corporate IM, several flavors of personal IM, the Skype client and several flavors of collaboration software including Google Apps/Docs, GoToMeeting. My wife and daughter call me or text me on the cell phone. My co-workers who are too lazy or passive aggressive to wander into my office use IM. My brother in Iraq uses Skype. I use GoToMeeting and its built-in VoIP with customers. The big black phone sits there gathering dust. I use it for conference calls a few times each month. I'm sure that there are sales people out there who would rather give up a body part than their trusty office phone, but do any of the rest of us need them? Around here, the younger engineers frequently unplug them and stick them in a cabinet to free up desk space. Are the days of the office phone (and the office phone system) at an end?"

13 of 445 comments (clear)

  1. Cell phones are usually tied to a person by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Landlines are tied to a place.

    Each will have pros and cons and which on is appropriate for the situation depends on this basic fact.

    1. Re:Cell phones are usually tied to a person by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Informative

      Landlines are tied to a place.

      With older systems, sure.

      Last big place I worked, the "landlines" were all voip phones running on a virtual network (to ensure QoS) on the same network switches as the regular gig-e network. It used a standard SIP backbone and you could port the number around the place or, in fact to any computer including a cellphone with a data connection. That's not much of a problem in the UK since you can get enough data for voice calls cheaply enough (£10 /mo).

      Was it worth it? Probably. The voice quality was generally substantially better than skype, probably because of the decent microphone and QoS within the local network at any rate. Also, for some reason about 80% of the UK population seem to be incapable of keeping their cellphone number when changing provider (even though it's a legal requirement for the companies to let you port it) and with some people, this seems to involve changing numbers on a fairly regular basis.

      In contrast, because the voip phone system was semi-sane and administered by semi-sane people, it was more common to keep a number for longer. I say semi sane because there was about a 30% chance of changing number when moving office, based mostly on the flip of a biased coin.

      Office phones can also have the advantage that after a set number of rings, they go through to the local secretary, or another worker. I wouldn't want my cellphone to be forwarded to a cow orker if I didn't pick up soon enough.

      TL;DR if you can't pick up office "landline" calls on a cellphone then you're comparing an ancient office phone system to a modern cellphone system which is not really a fair comparison.

      Oh and fun fact:

      Advanced prototype office phone systems in the late 90s had all those features, automatic porting, mobile options, apps and, of course, icon grids and touch screens.

      http://www.xorl.org/people/njh/bpstory/index.html

      Sadly those never came available even though they would still kick ass.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  2. Call Quality by Going_Digital · · Score: 5, Informative

    How can you seriously conduct business on a Cell phone ? The quality is awful, h_lf t__ time you o_ly get half the sent__e and have to either guess what was said or ask people to repeat themselves. Having a clear line is much more comfortable when using the phone all day and gives a much better impression. If I get a call from a company using a poor quality mobile I think to myself are they so cheap that they can't afford a proper phone ?

  3. Yes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm a software engineer - unlike the sales guys I don't have a work mobile phone, just a desk phone.

    And it works for when I want to call other internal departments or outside.

    Funny that.

  4. Well I certainly do by Viol8 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have to sometimes make long calls for my work and I *really* don't want to do it on a tinky winky little mobile phone, its bloody uncomfortable. And if I want to use a speakerphone then i'll need the mobile plugged into the wall anyway so the battery doesn't die halfway through and how is that any more convenient that having a landline with a cable? Also our Cisco deskphones have the entire company phonebook available on them which is very convenient. Their only downside is being IP phones , when the local LAN goes down so do all the phones.

    1. Re:Well I certainly do by dintech · · Score: 5, Funny

      "When I started my career back in the early 1990s, every floor had a 'urinal' in the bathroom. The urinal was how your co-workers, customers, friends and family emptied their bladders during the business day. It had a few features that everyone used — upright pissing position, automatic flush, quick drainage, three-way pissing (if you didn't mind standing close together). This was before personal chamber pots or shitting at work was allowed, so the urinal was basically the one and only means of bladder relief in the office. Flash forward 20 years. Today I have a chamber pot, directors en-suite, several scented flavors of toilet stalls, the squat toilet for foreign visitors and several flavors of collaboration urinals including along against-the-wall ones, center circle ones. My wife and daughter pee on the chamber pot. My co-workers who are too lazy or passive aggressive to put the toilet seat down in the stalls. My brother in Iraq uses the squat toilet. I use the directors toilet with built-in bidet and heated seat. The old along-the-wall urinal sits there gathering dust. I use it for conference calls-of-nature a few times each month. I'm sure that there are sales people out there who would rather give up a body part than their trusty office urinal, but do any of the rest of us need them? Around here, the younger engineers frequently unplug them and stick them in a cabinet to free up desk space, it makes a real fucking mess of the floor. Are the days of the office urinal (and the office urinal plumbing) at an end?"

    2. Re:Well I certainly do by dintech · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The point I was trying to make is that sometimes a specialist device is really ergonomic and good at the job, even if other devices can technically achieve the same end.

    3. Re:Well I certainly do by Ironhandx · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Company Phonebook aside... a direct phone number is the easiest way to get ahold of people.

      Cell phones are also the devil. If you ever actually want to work a 9-5 and only more when absolutely needed, you should be pushing for your desk phone to be your ONLY phone from work.

      People are screwing themselves over because they think its more convenient for themselves. Did you folks ever consider WHY the company is more than happy to give you a cell?

      Skype etc is just an extension of that.

    4. Re:Well I certainly do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyone, anywhere who uses a headset to make phone calls looks like an utter twat.

      As opposed to holding a small piece of plastic to the side of your head for the duration of a two hour conference call? And trying to type one-handed?

      I'll happily look like a twat and be comfortable, thank you.

  5. *facepalm* by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are the days of the office phone (and the office phone system) at an end?"

    Why is it that just because a bunch of younger people have gotten used to a different way of doing things, that somehow makes the way older people do things evil, wrong, out of date, etc.? The office phone is not there so you can twit your friendface and blog the interwebs: It's there for business. It's there for all possible meanings of the phrase "your call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes." It's there because it won't shit itself when 500 people decide to visit a Youtube video about a cat. It has no dead zones, doesn't need you to take the battery out if you try to load too many apps, or the SD card wiggles loose, etc. It. Just. Works.

    Businesses like things that just work. Your cell phone may be cutting edge state of the art, the thing all the cool kids are using and blah blah blah, but businesses care about those kinds of things... said no one. Ever. Businesses care about fixed costs and reliability and your cell phone won't ever have either. Configure one little thing wrong and you could be eating hundreds of dollars in overage fees... and god help you if your battery charge is running low and you're in the middle of an important call.

    Land lines: Because they just work, bitches.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:*facepalm* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually I agree with girlintraining. I'm 45 and will keep my desk phone for the following reasons.

      1. I work for the government and making internals costs nothing as it uses VOIP.
      2. I work with a team of people and we have group pickup which is extremely important (where's that function on a smart phone?)
      3. Desk phones are a hell of a lot more reliable for teleconferencing.
      4. I'm in an office and I can see if one of my team members is on the phone by the flashing red light on my phone - This assists me if I need to transfer the call but notice they are busy on another call.
      5. The cost of calls using land lines is MUCH cheaper than a mobile.
      6. Reliability. As stated they just work!; and lastly
      7. You can't use a normal deskphone for facebook or twitter (god help us) and waste work time.

      So no we won't see the demise of desk phones for the forceable future or at least until the 40 and 50 years olds retire.

  6. Not for the forseeable future by jorjb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I work with phones for a living at the largest private employer in Philadelphia.

    While office phones are clearly on the decline, they ain't dead yet. We have approximately 20k phones, half of which are VoIP and half of which are either POTS or a digital offering from the local carrier. All of them are converting to VoIP, slowly, and in the process I'm watching the attrition that the OP probably expects. It makes sense to get rid of single lines where they're unused and unnecessary.

    However, there remains the complex office setup where you have administrative assistants, or a suite front desk, and shared line appearances. Once someone wants to be able to put a call on hold on one phone and pick it up on a different physical phone, they want it to work like the same technology did in the 80s.

    Of course it was easier in the 80s, when those phones shared a dedicated physical copper pair that carried nothing but the voice. With digital signaling it's significantly trickier; Broadsoft has a proprietary protocol to handle this, and the IETF specification (http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-anil-sipping-bla-04) never left Internet Draft status (which, frankly, is a good thing as it's a very poor protocol).

    I don't see that complex setup going away any time soon, as it's a common VIP pattern.

  7. Re:I certainly don't by PIBM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sadly, that's blatantly false; if your company is using skype and linked a phone number to the account or a virtual PBX in front, then you will certainly be interrupted exactly as with your normal phone. That also applies to any other systems allowing phone numbers to be plugged in..