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Bye-Bye Landlines, Hello New Problem

By Neal Colgrass, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 15, 2009 7:44 AM CDT

(Newser) – Americans are gleefully dropping landlines at a rate of 700,000 per month without any regard for the long-term consequences, the Economist says. Few of us will weep for businesses that rely on landlines—telemarketers and pollsters come to mind—but emergency services like fire and police also need them. And as home phones fade away, landline taxes are liable to rise to keep the outdated copper-wire system alive.

One analyst warns that those taxes—which pay for universal landline access—could end up being foisted onto cellphone users. To avoid a tax crisis, President Obama must battle bureaucracies and replace the nation's archaic phone system with wireless and fiber-optic technology. "There are hard choices for Mr Obama’s people to make," says the Economist, "but sticking with old rules devised for copper wires is not one of them."

[Images (1)]

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Americans are ditching landlines without regard for long-term consequences to emergency services and taxes needed to keep the copper-wire phone system alive, the Economist says. (Shutterstock)

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First to suffer are telemarketers, though they cannot expect much sympathy. Mobile numbers are harder to get hold of, and in most cases it is also against the law for telemarketers to call them. -

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 24 comments

Yourself

Aug 17, 2009 4:28 AM CDT

@blueayez - yeah they are, but it's still needs a lot of tweaking, and lets say you get to the GPS point and it's a 20 story tower, how do you know which unit the emergency is in?

scottaco

Aug 16, 2009 11:41 AM CDT

It just keeps coming back up. Several years ago, AT&T was given permission to hike their rates justified by replacing ALL of the phone lines with fiber optics. They have never done this. Then they claimed it wasn't enough of a rate increase, so they were given permission again. Still, it was never done. Now, instead of forcing AT&T to take care of their responsibilities, the government will be creating yet another tax so we can pay for it all again.

Michael_CT

Aug 16, 2009 9:46 AM CDT

where are they all going to be disgarded? eish... i can just see the dumps of white, glimmering plastic. . .

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US • Money • Technology

cell phones • phone service • land lines • mobile phones

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