The office landline will likely become extinct in November 2028, new analysis predicts, with business numbers falling 370,000 in a year to 4.98million, according to the latest Ofcom data.
This is a dip from 2013 when there were more than eight million landlines in the UK's office and workplaces, business communications service Ringover Group revealed. It predicts this will fall below two million in spring 2024 and drop under one million in early 2026.
However, while some believe the office landline will be no more, others think it will be around for years to come.
Lockdown accelerated change for many businesses across the country and one central landline isn't always a viable solution, especially if multiple teams are working from home.
IP-based landlines and the flexibility they provide are already dominating the working world, due to the mobile nature of our work lives. Renaud Charvet, chief executive at Ringover Group, explained: "The office landline has kept businesses running for almost a hundred years, so it will be quite a milestone when the last one is terminated."
Ringover Group said it has seen demand for the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) soar 230 percent in the past year as millions of users in Europe worked from home during lockdown.
Traditionally, landline phones rely on legacy analogue networks which have been around for decades.
However, over the next five years, there will be a UK wide industry-led program of analogue voice switches closures, which means providers will stop offering voice landline services using this 'aging' technology, according to Virgin Media. This is because the technology behind this is reaching the end of its life and becoming increasingly costly and difficult to maintain.
