Do your children know how to use an ordinary landline telephone?

[TheTecknician]

I still have a landline but I rarely use it. I guess they're mainly for business use these days and public telephones seem to be on the way out. I've been thinking if your average youngster would know how to use a push button (or even a rotary) dial telephone in an emergency. Are they familiar with the 999 facility ? Do things like this get taught in school ? Mobile telecommunications are here to stay but the landlines, I hope, will always be an important back-up system.

Thanks but we are perfectly happy with the landline. My OH has actually tried to use wi-fi calling a few times but with no success. Recently changed providers to try and save money and it doesn't work - they don't seem to know why.

And don't even get me started on teaching that that ctn, dl, gtfoh, bc, str8 (and all such things) are not, in fact, English

Anyone else wondering what ctn, dl, gtfoh, bc and str8 mean?

🤷‍♂️

I think I know what the last three mean ('get the fuck out of here', 'because' and 'straight'?) but haven't a clue about the first two.

We can't get rid of our landline, because it's the only number DH's mother will call us on (sigh)
My DC (13 & 19) know how to answer it but I'm not sure either have ever made a call on it!

A depressingly high number of children these days think that 911 is the number to call in the event of an emergency. We do lessons on safety as part of the health curriculum and this comes up a lot! Even when you tell them it's 999 in the UK they still don't seem to believe you because they see it in so many films and TV shows.

Dialling 911 works too. The service is set up to ensure that mistake doesn’t cause users a problem.

Calls to 911 will be transferred to 999. You can dial 112 as well.

Obviously teach kids that 999 is the emergency number. But the actual service is designed more pragmatically.

Yes. Mine are 15 and 18 and we had a landline until a couple of years ago.

Apparently that only works from a mobile phone. I've never tried. 🤷‍♀️

That's brilliant 😂 at least you know he can use it🤣🤣🤣

There's a YouTube vid of asking teens to use a rotary phone. Made me feel ancient like.

My office doesn’t have landlines either, we all have work issued mobile phones.

Apparently most mobile phone providers will reroute the call these days but not landlines.

I suspect the people affected will never be using a landline anyway.

The push button ones are pretty similar to a mobile phone so no problem there. There was a bakelite rotary phone at an exhibition of retro household items we went to once, and they thought that was hilarious. "So you have to push it all the way round and then let it go back. What if you forget which number you've got to? " 😁

But that was OP's original question. 🤔

My message above was meant to be a reply to that. Sorry if that didn't make sense.

it’s appalling and dangerously negligent service design if landline providers aren’t routinely sending 911 calls to 999.

It’s well known that some people - tourists, in particular, but also young people - are likely to dial 911. Not doing it out of some misplaced sense of nationalism is very bad.

It's appalling and dangerously negligent if parents and carers don't teach their children what to do in case of an emergency. Tourists should always be aware of how to get help when visiting a foreign country. That's pretty basic. We all managed before mobile phones were even a thing.

We have voice over internet phones so they work the same as mobiles anyway

What a range of replies. Thankyou all.

Ha. The only reason landlines still exist is because providers want desperately to cling on to the revenue for them, and waft BS about the needs of old folk. I reckon my kids could work it out, but I frequently have to explain how linear TV works through an aerial, ie before streaming was a thing.