The telephone, patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, was the first historical example of a device that facilitated a conversation between two people who were a long distance apart from one another in physical space. Up until the late 20th century, the only phone systems available were landlines connected by twin wires across a telephone network. In the early days of landlines, individual numbers assigned to parties in a give phone system each had two letters at the beginning of the phone number. This was because back then, people were nervous about being able to successfully remember a string of numbers more than 4 or 5 digits long.
The popularity of classic landline telephone systems is at an all time low. More and more, people are giving up their landlines in favor of solely relying on cell phones, which have the advantage of being portable due to their communications with a telephone network vis a vis radio transmissions. Studies focused on mobile phone usage trends indicate that on average, people check their cell phones approximately 23 times per day for messaging, 22 times per day for voice mail, and they typically check the time at 18 intervals during a 24 hour period. In many ways, as a society, we have become chained to our mobile phone systems.
Though employees use their mobile phones for many work related purposes, physical office spaces still rely predominately on landline business phones systems. This is true both of big business and of the type of phone system for small business offices most commonly in place. However, analysts argue that within the next couple of decades, mobile phone technology will become ubiquitous and singular within corporate offices, and corporate landline phone systems will slowly be phased out over the next 20 years. Helpful links.