Disconnect

On 22 June 2010 I wrote that I was considering cancelling my telephone service. I wasn’t thinking about cancelling my landline on account of a cellular; I was writing about discontinuing my telephone service outright since I never use the contraption and I do not enjoy it when I do. It costs me over six hundred dollars a year to have a telephone and I see this as a waste of my money. My 2012 resolution is to disconnect. As of February when you ring the Rowland residence, there will be no answer.

Since my library has Statistics Canada census data freely accessible, I decided to see what the numbers were for households with telephones. The data surprised me:

20052006200720082009
Telephone (includes business use)94.4%94.1%92.2%91.6%89.3%
One24.3%26.3%26.2%27.7%27.6%
Two30.4%28.4%26.0%24.5%23.5%
Three or more39.6%39.4%40.0%39.4%38.3%
Cellular telephone64.2%67.7%71.4%73.2%77.2%

From this table, one can clearly see that the number of households with cellular telephones has increased dramatically since 2005. What surprised me was the number of households without telephones: although the last available data are from 2009, there are approximately 11% of Canadian households without any telephone service whatsoever. That is my interpretation of these figures and I wonder if I am missing something. I wonder if 11% of Canadians feel the same way as I do. Is the number of Canadian households without telephones that large?

I am going to conduct an experiment to see how inconvenienced I am by not having a telephone. Since I never pick up the phone to call anyone, I will not miss it. I know that my mother will freak out and Mark will be annoyed. This period of being without a phone will be temporary, as I know I should not live without any telephone communications outlet. During the time that I am disconnected I will use the phone at work if necessary. The landline company is bleeding me out of hundreds of dollars a year for a service I rarely use: it is time I cut my losses.

My plan is to acquire a telephone on a pay-as-you-go basis. No telephone company provides landlines with this payment option. I will be resigned to getting a cellphone–sheesh. I may eventually have a cellular but I am never going to take it with me. And call display and voice mail and message options? I want none of them. Thank-you for calling.

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