New Survey Says Landline's Demise Will Change Telecom for Good

Telecommunications is a technology that seems to be in a constant state of flux since the inception of IP. VoIP’s history has had marked gradual improvements over the years, and as Internet connections improve, VoIP is encroaching on traditional phone services. In fact, it’s this very idea that many respondents to a recent survey say will be one of the “most disruptive forces” in the changing landscape of telecom.

Bandwidth’s inetwork commissioned research from ATLANTIC-ACM to get a better idea of what’s considered a disruptive factor when it comes to VoIP providers, voice buyers and how it will impact business.

Seventy-four percent of the respondents said that going all IP will be the most disruptive in the future of telephony trends. Seventy percent of respondents noted the death of "Plain Old Telephone Service" (POTS) as the third most disruptive factor, with providers of legacy phone services looking to offer end-users the enhanced features only available from IP-based platforms.

"While certain resellers will claim there is still money to be made in Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), the overall market continues to decline," said Dr. Judy Reed Smith (News - Alert), CEO of ATLANTIC-ACM, in a statement. "End-user migration to wireless, VoIP and everything in between will drive shrinking demand for traditional wholesale voice services, leaving those providers unwilling to deviate from 'business-as-usual' in the dust."

Traditional phone lines are slowly being phased out as businesses and households around the world embrace the benefits and features that VoIP technology has to offer. VoIP has opened up a string of possibilities for its users, but can it truly replace POTS as the telephony of choice for majority of the world's population?

Because VoIP is flexible, inexpensive and comes with bundled features, it’s an attractive choice for businesses, not to mention its portability. However, giving up on POTS means doing away with doing without specialized equipment and the dependency on electricity.

Still, business VoIP providers and wholesale voice buyers aren’t convinced POTS is here to stay. The future is in SMS services and IP-enabled mobile devices, according to Bandwidth’s inetwork executives.

"The survey results prove that the 'phone' as we know it, and the telecom industry in general, are pushing the boundaries into an entirely new phase - one that inetwork is uniquely positioned to support,” said Steve Leonard, executive vice president and general manager of Bandwidth's inetwork division.

For those looking to find out more about VoIP service providers, GetVoIP.com is a single resource for everything VoIP – it offers the latest news and trends and compares pricing, reliability, features, user ratings and reviews for residential and business VoIP providers alike.  

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Edited by Rachel Ramsey