In Israel you can own a *kosher* cell phone. This means that you have constant monthly payment with bank of minutes you can use calling other kosher phones **and** landline phones. The phone itself is disabled of making pictures, surfing, sending SMSs and so on.  The calls to non-kosher phones are much more costly. Kosher cell phones are backeneded by rabinical authorities.
(There are some more details about this (could be found [here][1]), I'm just presenting the main idea.)

From the above I conclude that common practice in Israel is that any landline phone is equal to kosher cellular phone. From this I can not derive what was when landlines were first introduced, but anyway I suppose they were not criticized.


  [1]: http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%A8%D7%99_%D7%9B%D7%A9%D7%A8