"David Looser" wrote in message
...
"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
Now this is interesting on the Beeb news web site. A bunch of graphs
showing gadget ownership. Phones, CD players and video recorders have
all peaked, and are on their way down. DVDs and mobiles are just about
plateau-ing. Internet related stuff is still climbing. For how long, I
wonder?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12058944

d

Any survey of this sort depends rather on what the question is, and how
it's
answered. For example, the decline in telephone availability is
pointless.If
almost everyone has access to a mobile 'phone, then the need for a fixed
telephone, which is I presume what the question asked, goes away.

I'm not sure I agree with that. A mobile phone is a personal phone, a
fixed-line phone belongs to a premises; though I grant that this
distinction is more relevant to businesses. Also of course a fixed-line
phone is much cheaper to use, and isn't going to fail because the
batteries have gone flat or there isn't a signal.

I was also surprised that the domestic penetration of phones in 1970 was
only 30%, bearing in mind that they had been available in all except the
most remote parts of the UK since the 1920s, and in central London since
1880.

David.

When I was a teenager growing up in Surrey, which even then (late 60s) was a
reasonably prosperous area, many of my school friends didn't have telephones
at home. If one extends to other less well-off areas, I'm not surprised at
the 30% figure overall.

As to fixed lines, my son doesn't have a fixed line at home, he and his
partner work entirely off mobile communications even for internet. These
days, with the right package, it works out pretty much at a fixed cost
regardless of usage, so they have never seen the point, as they will need to
have mobiles as well as a fixed line, so why bother with the fixed.

S.