Two ringy dingy…
Blacklocks- 91,000 Cellphones Fell Silent
Auditors counted 91,237 mobile phones issued to employees that were unused. Phones may have gone dormant as more employees used videoconferencing to work from home, said the report.
Evaluation complained there were now more government-issue cellphones and landlines than there were employees on the federal payroll. Auditors counted more than 840,000 phone lines and 375,000 employees. Costs of telephone lines totaled $339.6 million a year, “a 73 percent increase since 2019,” said the report.
They are just building out for the Green Revolution
Wake me when 91,237 public servants fall silent.
Forever.
Fckn parasites.
As they say in the joke about Lawyers … “it’s a start”.
BTW … the silent cell phones ARE public servants opting OUT by refusing to actually WORK from home.
because . . . . . . they dont pay for any of it. its like air. its free so it gets grossly misused.
its one of those funny things about economics hoomahns dont give a rodents derriere unless THEIR
money is involved.
’twas ever thus . . . .
Press one for what indigenous land you are settled on.
Press two for what ministry you might care to connect to.
Press three for sevices in french or punjabi.
Press four if you made it this far, and want more.
Press five if you are still alive and are considering MAID.
Press seven, cuz all good children go to heaven.
WHAT would I do without my cell phone (Victor Wooten).
Have a nice day.
LOL …
Okay, boomer.
My smartphone is an absolutely critical tool for my job. I can easily go three months without making or receiving a voice call because that’s not what I use my smartphone for, and various VOIP services (WhatsApp, Slack, MS Teams &c.) provide far superior audio quality and features. Without more information on what a “dormant account” is (does it include the use of mobile data?) this is a misleading article.
The issue here is that the cell phone feature of most modern smartphones is becoming increasingly vestigial. They’re hand computers, and in most cases likely don’t need a cell SIM at all given the ubiquity of public wifi.
Your post certifies and endorses the BLESSING that I am not tethered to a dinging telephone … texting incessantly. I return the important texts by the end of each day. Thankfully, so little in my life is “down to the second hand” urgent. Happy to be a consciously connected Boomer … not a slave to my phone.
In March 2020, there were 232,307 issued phones
In March 2023, there were 403,358 issued phones, or 1.13 per civil service employee.
Of that number 95,160 were suspended for non use in March 2023, up from 57,750 in March 2020.
So, those phones were bought and paid for by taxpayers (or our descendants) and then they went 3 months without use to get suspended (while still paying) and then cancelled at 6 months, but for some reason they didn’t manage to cancel them (“However, delays in finalizing cancellations occurred as partners required extensions for their reviews of these devices. Based on partner feedback, Telecommunications had planned to cancel 52,000 zero-use mobile phones by spring 2023.” – no word on how many were cancelled)
Note that up until 2023, all of these were “Flagship” devices. Then someone had the idea that when refreshes happen, 20% will be “Flagship” devices, and then the next 80% will be second tier devices.
Shared Service Canada also seems to have a warehouse full of used phones they don’t know what to do with.
https://www.canada.ca/en/shared-services/corporate/publications/2023-24/evaluation-mobile-devices-fixed-lines.html
You don’t suspend phones, you suspend cell service accounts. The problem is that cell phone companies’ practice of embedding the cost of the phone in the billing for cell service makes asset management difficult.
The article continually conflates cell phones (by which they mean smartphones), cell service accounts, and landlines. Those are three very different things used for three very different purposes, making the article outrage bait rather than anything useful.
Good for you.
L – 91,237 burner phones…?
Pretty much …
McReam
When you have more phones than people, say what?
the usual wasteful civil servants , will there ever be a reckoning .
I’m not sure guillotine(s) can cycle fast enough to bring this under control.
Responsible Government.
“We have the technology; and it’s all paid for. We don’t need it, but why would we care?”
Bell and Rogers are scamming us in cahoots with the Gubmint.
Call me, I might speak to you.
I’m tempted, but I might burn my ears.