By Chua Hian Hou

IT COULD be the beginning of the end for that phone on your desk.

A report released on Wednesday predicted that office land lines could go the way of other obsolete equipment - like punch cards - as more companies outfit their employees with mobile phones.

Within four years, 40 per cent of white collar workers will no longer have desk phones, according to research firm Gartner, which examined future technological trends.

Research director Robin Simpson said the switch mirrors a trend that has seen Singaporeans embrace the convenience of mobile phones; there are 1.3 cellphones for every person here.

'It is simply human nature to use a tool you are more familiar with, because it is more convenient and faster,' he said.

Sales executive Sally Tan, for instance, said she 'won't notice' if her company got rid of her desk phone.

Said the 31-year-old: 'I think I make maybe two calls on my desk phone every week, at most.'

There are no official statistics on the number of companies that have replaced land lines with mobile plans.

However, operators like MobileOne and StarHub have received a number of requests from companies to outfit entire departments with handsets. SingTel said it has not received any such inquiries.

One of the larger organisations that has started this migration is the Media Development Authority. Video games distributor AsiaSoft has gone one step further. In mid-2007, the company pulled the plug on most of its 100-plus desk phones.

Its staff now use mobile phones and Internet phone software like Skype, said AsiaSoft spokesman Ng Kok Khwang.

While employees took a while to get used to this new setup, they have since grown to appreciate the flexibility of the new arrangement.

The firm also benefits from 'greater control' over its telecommunications bills, he said. Programs like Skype allow users to make calls on their computers, often for much less than what it would cost to dial long-distance over conventional lines.

According to government statistics, there were about 777,000 corporate fixed line phones last September, a number that has remained fairly constant over the last two years.

The current economic crisis though, said Mr Simpson, could prompt more companies to re-examine their telecommunications setup - and possibly go mobile, in view of the possible productivity boost for employees.

But this does not mean the end of the fixed line, said StarHub spokesman Cassie Fong. Certain sectors, like banking, may require employees to record conversations for security reasons. There are also phone services, like teleconferencing, that still require the venerable fixed line, she explained.

And not everybody is keen to make the switch. An administrative assistant who asked to be known only as Mr Lim said: 'If the company pays for a mobile phone for me, does it mean my boss has the right to call me any time for work?'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on January 23, 2009.