VoIP, Wireless Grow Big as Landlines Slowly Die

Research released this month shows that landlines will continue to slowly fade away as wireless service and VoIP continue to make significant leaps.

The study by Axvoice predicts that the number of U.S. households with wireline service will drop from 151 million in 2010 to just 135 million in 2015. At the same time, the number of cellular subscriptions will grow from about 275 million to more than 450 million over the same time period. VoIP’s growth, Axvoice predicts, will be even more staggering, on a percentage basis, with roughly 22 million subscriptions growing to approximately 66 million between 2010 and 2015.

Many of the reasons for landline’s struggles are obvious, but worth noting, Axvoice suggests:

• The first reason is that fixed landline phone subscribers have a fixed line rent to pay which is quite high.
• With the availability of HD voice they lack the clarity of voice that other networks provide.
• They cannot be relied upon owing to their use of old copper wire technology.
• They are not portable.

The accompanying chart breaks it down further.