Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor has begun phasing out permanent land-line telephones around the country that aren’t run through fiber cables. The vast majority of Norwegians have moved on to mobile phones and rid themselves of conventional phones already.
“In 2001 we had around 2 million land-line customers,” Arne Quist Christensen of Telenor told website Nettavisen. “Now we have around 240,000 left, and there’s been a decline of 18 percent with those on old copper lines.
Telenor had initially thought it would phase out the conventional phones six years ago, but there still weren’t enough good alternatives then. Now there are. Telenor reported that around 15,000 customers will lose service for old rotary phones in the course of this year and next, with the alternative being fiber or mobile solutions.
Telenor is also phasing out its 3G mobile service in many areas, in favour of “more modern” solutions.
newsinenglish.no staff
