Home phone News

Brits spend five hours a month on home phone

Tuesday 1 November, 2011

By Anthony Hill

Households across the UK still spend five hours a month using the landline, despite living in an increasingly mobile world.

New research by Ofcom shows we still make millions of home phone calls, even though most of us now use a mobile for most of our contact with family and friends.

According to the communications watchdog, there are 23.7 million active telephone lines across Britain, typically making more than 1.7 billion calls each month.

Based on data from March 2011, the report also showed that each landline is used for a monthly average of 72 calls. The total duration of calls per line was five hours, which amounts to more than 7.1 billion minutes on fixed lines nationwide.

As well as voice calls, the telephone network is increasingly useful for surfing the internet. Broadband is now available on almost every landline in the UK, with superfast connections - offering speeds over 24Mb - now available to 58% of homes and businesses.

Last year’s Communications Market Report by Ofcom showed that 23 million households now have a fixed telephone line, with around 18 million also subscribing to a home broadband package.

But recent findings from an Asda Mobile poll suggest many Brits are falling out of love with their landline, in favour of making calls - as well as sending messages and browsing the web - on their mobile device.

It found that one in five 18 to 34-year-olds don’t actually have a landline phone at home, while 47% of respondents said they could envisage not needing a fixed line at all in the future.

But there is a definitely an age divide, as more than 80% of the over-55s surveyed said they still use their landline to make calls.