1 Quercus: {over ship's intercom} Mr Spanners, the cargo has just been delivered.
2 Spanners: Thanks, Quercus. Now, the question is how long should we wait for Serron and Iki Piki? We don't know what they're up to.
3 Paris: Why don't we just call them? Being a highly technological society, we must have some form of communicators or phones or something.
4 GM: {speechless}

Advanced technology is a great way to short circuit plots. The reason the transporters and communicators so often broke down, suffered interference, or were simply stolen in the original Star Trek was because the characters could avoid the entire plot of the episode if they could use them. The series writers have admitted as much.

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2017-12-02 Rerun commentary: Modern fiction has adapted and now often makes use of such instant communication technology. And you don't see it breaking down as often as you used to, because the writers have figured out how to have compelling plots without always needing to disable the technology of the day. But it still happens occasionally.