Desk Phone Is a Dying Breed

My son Arien just came home from his first year at U of A this week. I am happy to have him home.

It was in interesting year in that the difference between my generation and his was highlighted -- in particular their communications mode of choice. Anytime there was a concern or question, we (my husband and I) would ask, “Did you talk to your professor?” He would always say, “I e-mailed him/her.”

When we suggested a phone call or visit, it was met with obvious discomfort or the excuse: “I have a class during his/her office hours.” OK, how about scheduling an appointment. “I e-mailed him/her to schedule an appointment.”

We suggested that some of the professors might be from a different era (e.g., old, like us) and might prefer a less technical interaction. Our son was unmoved by this argument.

Apparently my son is not the only one. I recently read a May 7 article in the Seattle Times quoting a professor at the University of Washington, who said his office phone rings “once every two weeks.”

So, naturally, the university took his phone away! Literally, just took the phone off his desk. And, not only his, but all the professors’ phones. The outgoing message on the disconnected lines directs the caller to, you guessed it: e-mail the professor.

Eliminating the desktop phones was part of a cost-cutting measure, which I should appreciate considering that it might lessen tuition hikes. However, I find it somewhat sad. The desk phone, it seems, is a dying breed.

You may be thinking: “Of course, you saw this coming. You cover telecom, for goodness sake.”

I suppose I did, but the harsh reality of the phones being ripped from our hands unceremoniously troubles me. I always pictured it as a gradual weaning from the desk phone to the mobile phone. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen until FMC was perfected, enabling in-building/campus calls to be on no-cost Wi-Fi and remote calls to be on the cell network. Running parallel systems it seems is cheaper than going cold turkey, it seems.

The residential market, as far as I can tell, has been years ahead of businesses on this front, converting to wireless-only in droves. But they had a great incentive – each family member usually didn’t have their own personal landline phone number. With mobile, they do. It makes more sense for each family member to have his own number.

But in the office, we already have that phone ownership thing going. Our own phone, our own voice mail, etc. There’s no need to give that up – unless you are trying to maintain two. Two phones, two voice mail boxes. That’s a pain ... for the user. For the business, it’s cheaper, so that’s what we’ve been doing – two-timing the phones. Thankfully, that seems to be coming to an end. Soon we’ll all be one-device, men and women.

For the dealers out there, this is bittersweet. They may see more customers forgoing the traditional phone system setup, making orders and revenues decline. At the same time, more customers will be interested in upgrading to FMC solutions. Some of these work with existing smartphones, so the revenue opportunity might not be as great as one device per person. But the applications upsell and the help desk options should be significant revenue generators, and let’s not forget the mobile device management. Corporate-liable phone plans will be the de facto standard and companies will want to make sure that those phones are procured, inventoried, secured and disconnected efficiently.

Meanwhile the displaced desksets will wind up in the secondary markets, or worse, the landfill, where old technologies go to die.