As land lines become a relic, Lumen Technologies petitions the state to release them from ‘carrier of last resort’ responsibility.This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab.Even after cell phones saw widespread adoption in the 1990s, landlines continued to dominate home phone use. In 2008,Since then, it’s been all downhill.
Lumen/CenturyLink has filed a petition with the Utah Public Service Commission, citing the massive decline in landline use. The company had more than 830,000 landlines in 2005. In 2022 that number had dropped to fewer than 120,000. “Requiring only CenturyLink to bear significant uneconomic and unrecoverable financial burdens is not sensible, distorts the marketplace, and is discriminatory,”Mobile phones now dominate. The petition states that as of June 2021, 72% of voice lines were cell phones. Another 15% are Voice Over Internet Protocol lines, which includes Comcast customers who have landlines bundled with their TV and internet plans.
Landlines can also remain live even when power is out, although that only works longterm with corded phones., noting that they have become more expensive and less reliable as most consumers move away from them. Call quality is clearer too, as cell phone technology progresses, AARP tells its members.will give it a formal process