The home telephone is dead.
OK, that might be a little premature as almost households in the Western world still have 1 or more landlines in service. But the trusty home phone has been dealt a fatal blow and will wither away slowly to a similar status that the fax machine currently holds. Already, cap plans giving consumers “hundreds of dollars worth” of calls (a brilliant marketing ploy) meant that homestarters could simply add an extra $10-20 to their monthly plan and negate the need for a landline which costs $30 just for line rental alone.
But now, having a a home phone is not just unneccesary, but a flat out waste of money for most Australians who can now get unlimited calls, SMS and MMS to any phone in Australia for just $50 a month. That’s right, unlimited. With 200MB of data and some other goodies thrown in. All you have to do is sign up to the oddly-named Data Blaster plan on Optus Prepaid. What hope does the landline have?
R.I.P. Home Phone.
UPDATE: The Terms and Conditions for the Optus ‘Data Blaster’ plan were hidden away and the details of the plan were misleading - unlimited calls on this plan are only to other Optus Prepaid phones. Nevertheless, the home phone is still on the death bed as mobile phones plans include more and more calls. Of my friends who have moved out of home, none of them have a home phone.
