Landline, Mobile and Video Telephony
Landline is on the way out.
I am told the NBN infrastructure in Australia does not optimally support fixed line telephones as well as the previous arrangements we have had since the invention and installation of the house phone.
Retro phones are sold in decreasing prices and are destined to go the way of the compact disc, television set and analogue media. At least, however, to replace them involves paying less than buying a new smart mobile phone.
The old fashioned phone does not need to be recharged regularly in order to function. It even has a back up battery until the day the NBN contractors arrived at your abode - now you have to cough up replacing with a new battery as the NBN has disenabled the previous back up battery that was working fine.
Both landline and mobile phones are subject to nuisance calls, hacking, fraud and pesty commercial sales. Every human communication opportunity is utilised by the so called slick oily sales person, the threatener, the deranged, the opportunist and the tricky mind. They can turn up at your door, infiltrate through your electronic and digital transactions or place a pesky virus to destroy or manipulate your data. So in the perspective and attitude of such parties, the phone is only a mechanism to possibly deprive your comfort of privacy, sense of integrity and steal your money.
Everyone would recall those irritating landline telephone calls around dinner time, after you reckon you deserve a rest and quiet time after a long day at work or business. Millennials may not feel the obligation to answer every phone call, but baby boomers on the other hand grew up in an age when one was supposed to be civillised when speaking on the phone.
Fraudsters, trouble makers and the not so pyschologically stable can take advantage of this presumption of civility on the part of people who pick up their ringing phone. However, the negative experience of being on the unpleasant end of nonsense, prank, spam and fraudster calls has made telephone owners more cautious.
Would you pick up calls with unknown or unshown or private numbers? What do you think of pre-recorded messages blaring at your ear when you answer a call? How would you react trying to listen and understand foreign accents on the phone when you did not initiate the call?
With smart phones, you can report, block and prevent the hassling caller from calling again. You may not be able to do that with the landline telephone. In the latter scenario, you most likely do not even know the phone number of the person who has dialled you, unless your fixed base phone supports a number identification ability. Underlying this experience, a primary matter remains not satisfactorily answered by the Government and the telcos - who the heck gave access to my phone number? Even registering one's telephone number in a Government initiative of "don't call me" does not mean a prankster cannot call through.
And then there are Skype, Facetime and other easily accessible video interaction calls. They can be more intimate, revealing and effective, as one can evaluate non verbal behaviours of the participants, apart from the use of the tone of voice. People tend to be on a better countenace profile using such a combined video and voice communication channel.
The average cost of making an international phone call is often higher from a landline. There is also the reduced accessibiliry of phoning from a landline if you are not near this phone. On the orher hand, voice over the internet protocol calls have significantly reduced call costs.
Concurrently, it is also interesting to note the relative combinations of text versus voice messages. That is why the mobile phone provides a plethora of apps other than just serving as a voice conduit and exchange. In the process, our privacy has been more invaded, compromised and degraded more than when we just held a landline telephone.
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