Could Home, Office Landlines Be Extinct in US by 2028?

Probably around ten years ago, there was a lot more attention being paid to landlines vs. cellphones in the US. Many business experts predicted the demise of traditional phones by 2025, some even earlier. Where do we stand?

  Could most business-home landlines be gone in five years?

  According to a 2022 study by Statista only 28 percent of US homes still have a traditional landline phone, a number that is down from around 60 percent ten years ago.

At the same time, the number of cellphone-only homes has risen to over 70 percent. There's a wide variety of reasons, including convenience, cost, and flexibility. It is a lot easier to have everything go through your phone, as opposed to having to forward home phone calls to your mobile device.

With the explosive growth of online business, data transfer, mobile apps, and other digital operations, the need for a landline has dropped even more.  The majority of older landlines are found in homes owned and lived in by older citizens.

If you project the Statista data, based on the trends since 2008, the home landline will be all but gone by 2028.

  Business landlines also fading, but not nearly as fast.

Many companies, especially smaller local or regional operations, still rely on a landline, especially if they have an office staff. However, according to research from SupplyChainIT.com, the business landline will also go 'extinct' by 2028.

  The website reports data from the Ringover Group predicts the number of US businesses that have a traditional landline will be at or virtually -0- by that year.

The reason for the decline is more and more operations are replacing traditional landlines with internet-based communications such as VOIP, or Voice Over Internet Protocol. These allow you to make calls over broadband internet (even wireless) without having to use a phone line. These include Skype, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Google Hangout.

The process was accelerated somewhat by the COVID pandemic when thousands of workers (where applicable) worked from home.

  Is copper wire also a reason?

Several tech and business companies also report virtually all new residential and business development (buildings etc) include fiber optic cable, as opposed to the older copper phone lines. Fewer and fewer systems are repairing them when they break, instead replacing them with often cheaper fiber optic.

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The future is not clear for how communications providers will continue to service older landlines, but with many of them being replaced by fiber optics, it is possible the landline could be all but gone by 2028.  But, experts said they would be 2025, so...