Analogue landline phones, which plug straight into a jack-point and don't require mains power, are still useful according to Sony. Despite the growing cellular networks and VoIP (Voice over Internet protocol) service, Sony says that landlines are often available at cheaper operational costs than wireless phones. Since there are plenty of old copper wire laid out in the infrastructure for the public switched telephone network (PSTN) has existed for decades it makes sense not to discard your old landline phones. And it seems people are not discarding them just yet. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, teens in America still rely on analogue landline phones as their no. 1 method of communication. "Teens don't drop old technologies as they add new ones, they just communicate more," says Pew's Amanda Lenhart. "And more frequently."
Gamer girl Stacy Keibler using a landline phone. The best thing about these phones, and the PSTN network, is their reliability. In a storm or power outage, cellphones don't work, but these trusty old analogue lines do. During last year's earthquake in New Zealand, cellular networks were knocked out but the analogue landline phones still continued to work, and proved useful in relief and rescue work. Meanwhile, in the UK the cost-per-minute rate of calling mobile phones from your landline will drop from from 4.18p to 0.65p, a whopping 85 per cent fall, by April 2015, according to the Competition Appeals Tribunal. Sony has applied for a patent for making a landline telephone module that would work with a set top box in a TV.
