Memorising phone numbers less important in mobile age, watchdog says
Ofcom says using and memorising landline telephone numbers is less common as smartphone ownership increases.
Britons now spend nearly half as much time using a landline as they did six years ago, but use 10 times as much mobile data, according to Ofcom research.
The telecoms regulator said data shows changing attitudes towards traditional landlines and telephone numbers, including fewer people now memorising phone numbers because they can store them in their mobile.
According to the research, the amount of time on landline calls in the UK fell from 103 billion minutes in 2012 to 54 billion in 2017.
Over the same period, mobile call minutes have increased from just over 132 billion to more than 148 billion minutes.
The regulator’s head of numbering, Liz Greenberg, said the trend could see changes to the way phone numbers are created.
“Some of us can remember a time when we stored phone numbers in our head, rather than our mobile. But the way we use and feel about telephone numbers is changing,” she said.
“In the future, as more calls are made over broadband, dialling codes won’t need to be fixed to a particular part of the country. So the question is – could area codes become a thing of the past?”
Ofcom said it has already begun investigating how to manage the use of UK landline telephones numbers in the future, including the potential to use blockchain technology.
The technology, initially created as the infrastructure for decentralised cryptocurrencies, could be used to make it quicker and easier for landline customers to switch providers while keeping the same phone number as well as potentially reducing nuisance calls, Ofcom said.
