Landline UK Phones Still Popular with Some Groups – 28 Percent of GEN Z Have One
A new Opinium survey of 2,000 UK adults, conducted during June 2025, has revealed that 28% of respondents aged 18-27 years old (Gen Z) still have a landline phone at home and 21% of that same group only retain it “as a decoration”. But interestingly, 43% of respondents remain unaware of the looming change to digital phones by the end of 2027.
The reality today is that most people don’t make much use of their home phone services (if they still have one), often preferring to use VoIP, mobiles or internet messaging services. At the same time, the old legacy phone networks have reached end-of-life and the market is gradually switching over to fibre optic broadband connections and digital (IP-based) landline alternatives.
The switch-off of legacy phone services is currently expected to complete on 31st January 2027, which was last year delayed from December 2025 in order to give broadband ISPs, phone, telecare providers, councils and consumers more time to adapt (details).
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The main focus of this delay was the 1.8 million UK people who use vital home telecare systems (e.g. elderly, disabled – vulnerable users), which aren’t always compatible with digital phone services because telecare providers were slow to adapt. But this overlooks that, for everybody else, many telecoms providers will still be working to the original Dec 2025 deadline to have their customers off the PSTN network.
The new survey, which was commissioned by Uswitch.com and should be taken with a pinch of salt given its small sample size, indicates that such landlines may still be quite popular with some unexpected groups, like Gen Z. But the findings are quite limited.
Additional Survey Findings
➤ 24% of Gen Z who own a landline say they use it frequently, compared to just 11% of the older Gen X (aged 44-59).
➤ Other top reasons for having a landline include speaking to family based abroad (25%), for emergencies (23%) and better call quality (23%).
➤ Gen Z don’t have the same nostalgic attachment as older generations, with just 19% able to recall their childhood phone number, compared to 50% of Gen X and 43% of Millennials.
➤ 43% of Gen Z think landlines are ‘old-fashioned’.
➤ 44% of respondents still have a landline.
➤ 11% of respondents say they prefer using a landline to a mobile phone and that a landline feels more “personal” than a mobile phone (13%).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Perhaps landlines (or more specifically VOIP lines) would be more popular if they were priced more in line with mobile contracts. How is it that I can get unlimited calls & texts & 5GB of data for £5 a month on my mobile but VOIP providers want more than double that for calls alone?
Big Dave, that is a curiosity that I too have been unable to quite get my head around.
Although on a slightly different note, it may be the case for many users (certainly myself and my parents) that ditching an inclusive call package and just having a PAYG-style VOIP connection would beat the traditional phone providers hands down price-wise overall, and may well come in at under £5 total per month too (particularly if you can largely avoid calling mobiles from it).
Mind you, setting up VOIP hardware out-of-the-box can be a real “faff”. A stronger word is probably more appropriate and it isn’t for the non-technically minded. Buying DECT base stations or ATAs pre-configured by the VOIP provider is what most people would need to do to get close to the plug’n’play of a traditional analogue phone.
So, 28% of people haven’t heard of WiFi calling, then?
I’d be interested to hear of people’s experience of using WiFi calling. Call sound quality using Lebara Wifi calls in my experience is pretty awful, either at the remote end (to my Lebara mobile) or the opposite way round or Lebara Wifi to Lebara Wifi. And I’m not talking about WiFi reception breakup. There’s a horrible persistent tinny reverberation in the audio. Myself and a friend (both on Lebara) have found this to the extent that we’ve both disabled it.
In how many cases is the home in question the parent’s home?
I have a ‘landline’ which is an A&A VoIP service costing £1.44 a month. I figure it’s there if my mobile ever has an issue and I need to phone the provider, and also the kids like using a physical handset instead of talking to a screen, and it looks more like the telephone they’re used to seeing in their books.