Britons hang up the landline as call volumes halve
Rise in mobile usage causes rapid decline of traditional telephones over last six years
The number of landline minutes in the UK has fallen from 103bn in 2012 to 54bn in 2017.
The amount of time Britons spend making landline phone calls has halved in the last six years, as the mobile revolution makes the more traditional method of communication increasingly obsolete.
Research from the telecoms regulator Ofcom charts the rapid decline in the popularity of using fixed-line telephones to make calls, with the number of minutes plummeting from 103bn in 2012 to 54bn in 2017.
Over the same period the amount of time Britons have spent using mobile phones to make calls has grown from 132bn minutes to 148bn minutes.
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Ofcom’s research found that mobile data use has rocketed by a factor of 10 – from 0.2GB per month per person to almost 2GB – between 2012 and 2017.
Part of this upward swing in data usage is driven by younger people who prefer to use apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger rather than making phone calls to friends and family. Research has found that a quarter of smartphone users never use them to make a voice call.
Many of the younger generation state that calling someone is a bit daunting. They find that it’s much easier and quicker to WhatsApp their friends. If a scenario arises were they have to phone a company they always look for a web chat option first if it’s available.
Last year, Ofcom found the average Briton checked their mobile phone every 12 minutes. It also found that, for the first time, the time spent making phone calls from mobiles fell, as users used messaging services instead.
In 2017, BT said it would scrap half of the UK’s remaining phone boxes – about 20,000 – after usage fell by 90% over the previous decade. BT found that while approximately 33,000 calls a day were still being made from phone boxes in 2017, about a third were only used once a month, and many were never used at all. At their peak there were 92,000 pay phones across the UK.