Businesses still see future in landlines

Mobile takeover? While mobile subscribers are projected to surpass population in Rhode Island, telecommunications professionals say there's still a place for wireline customers, despite the steady drop in subscribers among the Ocean State's 410,059 households. / Source: The Federal Communications Commission, local telephone competition reports, U.S. Census Bureau.
Mobile takeover? While mobile subscribers are projected to surpass population in Rhode Island, telecommunications professionals say there's still a place for wireline customers, despite the steady drop in subscribers among the Ocean State's 410,059 households. / Source: The Federal Communications Commission, local telephone competition reports, U.S. Census Bureau.

The evolution of telephone service in Rhode Island can largely be told in numbers.

During the last 15 years, the number of landline subscribers in Rhode Island has fallen 26.2 percent to 499,000, while the number of mobile subscribers has grown 249.8 percent, totaling 977,000 in December 2013.

To put these numbers into perspective: Before 2000, there was more than 1.5 landlines per every Rhode Island household; fewer than three of every 10 Rhode Islanders had a mobile subscription.

Fast forward to 2013, the number of landlines per household had dropped to about 1.2 lines and there’s roughly one wireless subscription for every single Rhode Islander, according to data collected by the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Census Bureau.

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It’s a story that’s playing out around the globe, though for local businesses at least, the landline is still holding its own. One reason is that mobile and landline technologies are often packaged and sold together, especially to businesses.

“We have seen almost no shift in our number of business telephone customers from 2014 to 2015,” said Eric Wagner, Cox Communications spokesman.

“This is primarily due to the convergence of fixed and mobile communications using mechanisms designed to optimize the user experience, such as automatic call forwarding,” he continued.

Verizon Inc. has invested more than $71 million into its fiber-optic and wireline networks in Rhode Island in 2014 alone. In the last five years, Verizon pumped more than $462 million into its Rhode Island infrastructure, because while the traditional use of landlines has declined, the hardwired infrastructure is key.

“At some point a Wi-Fi or cellphone signal finds its way back to a wire, primarily fiber, and is connected to its destination in an instance, whether hundreds or thousands of miles away,” said Verizon spokesman Michael Murphy.

Cox and Verizon couldn’t provide any specific data, but Murphy says businesses continue to be a strong wired-phone customer.

“Businesses operate from fixed locations, have multiple employees and needs for connectivity that wired phone networks offer,” he said.

Despite the optimism, however, the number of business subscriptions in Rhode Island is also declining. The number of business lines in Rhode Island peaked in 2008, totaling 237,000, according to the FCC. And while there’s some discrepancy in how the numbers are tallied, nonresidential wireline subscriptions fell to 193,000 in 2013, representing an 18.6 percent decrease.

The decrease, however, began after overall landline use started falling, which suggests some businesses are looking to mobile subscriptions to augment traditional desk phones

Last March, there were 32,780 employers in Rhode Island, according to the Department of Labor and Training. If 2013 nonresidential telephone subscriptions stayed consistent, there was an average 5.8 landlines per Rhode Island business compared with 7.2 landlines in 2008.

Regardless, Wagner remains optimistic about the future use of landlines among customers – both on the business and residential sides.

“On the residential side, customers are seeing the value that landline telephones add to their overall calling experience,” Wagner said. “For instance, when 911 is called on a landline phone, the dispatcher immediately knows the address from which the call originated.”

But if wireless and VoIP services are increasing, what does that mean for the future of utility poles that have carried the traditional circuit-switched phone lines that everyone used before mobile?

“Utility poles, at their core, exist to carry cables above ground at certain heights, and serve as attachment points for street lamps, signage and other equipment,” Murphy said. “We are now increasingly using utility poles to host small antennas, or ‘small cells,’ to increase the capacity of our wireless networks in areas where customers demand more services.”

Also, he adds, cities are using the poles to install equipment to study traffic patterns.

“I’d venture that utility poles are here to stay – wireless equipment needs height to provide coverage, street lamps need the height to cover streets below and the cost to attempt to bury all of these cables underground would be astronomical,” Murphy said. •

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