"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...

"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.


I remember in 1968 or '69 an American girl landed in the UK to accept a
friend of mine's invitation to stay (they had been on the same kibbutz in
Israel) and she was astounded to find that he didn't have a phone when she
tried to contact him!