Phone lines come to an end in Kainuu and Lapland in Finland: fears of many follow
According to news, Lapland’s entrepreneurs tremble for safety should phone-lines be dumped . The transfer of by-wire services to wireless is a process going on for a while in Finland. Especially in scarcely populated areas, the cost of keeping 50 000 lines up are high, while the transfer to gsm and wireless services is not.
It is a logical step from the operators. However, conventional phone is often the only connection a grandma living alone in Kainuu area has with the rest of world. Previously during this year we have been doing some usability research with computer users of age 70+, living in Kainuu area. Seniors use the traditional phone, all of them have serious troubles using a mobile phone (not mentioning using a computer). Answering a mobile phone-call is maybe ok, but anything behind that is a pain. Now, the lines will one day become deaf, and the only alternative is a mobile phone?
Consider this anecdotal situation we witnessed: a grandma loses her mobile phone at home. She uses her normal phone to phone her son to phone her back on her mobile phone so she can find it when it’s ringing. This illustrates the attitude well, a super small, hated, mobile phone, left somewhere. Soon, it will be the only connection to the rest of world.
PS: I hope there is a thick line to Justus’ office.
Tags: future, hci, internet, life
Somebody should teach the seniors to use Skype to locate your own phone, as I do :)
There is now a publication related to the usability research I mentioned [in Finnish]:
Kamppuri, M., Bednarik, R. and Juntunen, A.: Haasteena käytettävyys: Kotihoitoa tukevat etäpalvelut-hankkeen käytettävyystutkimus. Kajaanin ammattikorkeakoulun julkaisusarja B, Raportteja ja selvityksiä 11, 2008, ss. 39, ISBN 978-952-9853-6, ISSN 1458-915X
I can provide a copy of it (when I get my own).
That’s an interesting development. If senior citizens are not able to use “traditional” mobile phones or tend to lose them why no give them “stationary” mobile phones that look and behave in exactly the same way as conventional phones do but operate wirelessly? I’m sure there is a good market for this and not only in Finland …
Nils
PS. It’s always possible to attach a cable to make sure grandma ends up with a tangled mess that the son gets to untangle every now and then.
Nils, thanks, yes, I think there is a market for mobile phones that look just like the traditional ones. And indeed, the are two or three models available on the shelves.
In fact, we face this requirement more and more often: make complex things look like the old simple ones.