Up to 40% of UK Consumers Ready to Cut the Cord with Fixed Line Telephony

Over a third of Brits would be willing to stop using a landline for voice calls, if indoor mobile phone coverage were to be improved. The survey, conducted on behalf of femtocell vendor, Airvana, also revealed further opportunity for operators to extend (and monetise) the relationship with their customers if they can consistently deliver affordable and fast mobile data access in the home and applications optimised for the handset.

A significant segment of consumers that are willing to dispense with fixed line telephony altogether are 18-24 year olds, with 59 per cent of that age group stating that they would be prepared to make the switch to mobile only telephony in the home.

Naturally, it should be remembered that a femtocell still needs a landline connection to work - so the consumer is more accurately replacing a domestic handset with their mobile handset for making calls - not actually "ditching" their landline.

According to Sanjeev Verma, Co-founder and VP of Business Development, at Airvana, the trend of 'cutting the cord' is already prevalent in the U.S. with consumers adopting the mobile phone over the landline, and in most cases dispensing with the landline altogether, with one in four households becoming entirely dependent on mobile.

The survey also found that 47 per cent of consumers stated that they would use a much wider range of mobile applications and service, while the number of consumers currently using mobile devices to surf the web would increase from 22 percent to 38 percent.

Methodology

The survey was carried out online by YouGov on behalf of Airvana between 18th - 21st December 2009. Total sample size was 2000 GB adults (aged 18+) of which 1981 were mobile phone users. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).