Verizon’s chief marketing office says the end of copper telephone lines is nigh. In an interview with the LA Times, Chief Marketing Officer John Stratton said the company’s customers will all be served by wireless or internet-based phone connections by 2016. Bloggers were quick to react skeptically. Afterall, it suits Verizon’s strategy to sell “connectivity” packages rather than plain old voice calls over copper.

    

But the very fact that a senior telecom exec is willing to put a date on the end of copper lines is interesting. For another view, I took a look at the EIU’s forecast for fixed line penetration worldwide. We only go out to 2013, but the numbers show some significant declines ahead for copper. Worldwide, we are expecting a drop from 1.1bn copper lines last year to just under 594,000 in 2013, which will take global penetration of fixed lines from 23% to 11%.

       

Most rich countries, like Australia, France and the US will see their fixed line penetration rates plummet from around 50% to 24-25% over the same period. Poorer countries will bump along the bottom - penetration rates in India, for example, will creep up from 6% to 7% with Africa holding steady at less than 3%.

This all makes sense. Given the stunning popularity of the mobile phone, what’s the point of rolling out more copper, particularly as 3G and WiMax can provide the internet to those customers with the dosh to pay for it. So perhaps Verizon’s prediction isn’t so far off the mark. If not seven years, then surely within the next 10 or 15 years the fixed line connection will go the way of the rotary dial.