I have both (I'm 38). I'd love to ditch the landline, but I can't. One word: babysitter. If we're out of the house, and something happens to one of the kids, I don't want to rely on the babysitter to (a) have a cellphone and (b) have it adequately charged. E911 services on mobiles are not as good, but probably adequate. I'd ditch the landline for VOIP, but naked DSL is too expensive.

I only have a cell phone and don't look back. Frankly, a land line for me is just one more bill to pay, and I have an extra cell phone in the car charged up at all times in case of emergency. Never ever looked back, never missed having a land line.

The nice thing is that it's one less thing to deal with when you move, and you only have one number to give out to people when you need to say, get your car repaired or be alerted if a loved one is in the hospital, and you can have it on and on you at all times. You never miss a call unless you want to miss it, and features that cost money on land lines, like call waiting, caller ID, and voice mail are already baked in. :)

I'm a little over that youngest age group, but not by much. ^_^

What happens to those people without landlines in a power outtage when the cell towers are bombarded??? And they can't reach their friends and relatives at all because they don't have a landline?
What happens to those people in the instance of having poor reception to a cell tower period?
I keep my landline for security purposes, I have unlimited long distance and I get a discount with it because I have DSL, so the cost outweighs the risks as far as I am concerned.

I wonder if the figures include those of us whose telephone service is over our cable? I don't know what percentage that would represent, but it might be significant.

Power outage? Cell towers have diesel generators 99% of the time.

Cell towers bombarded? Well, that only happens in a catastrophe typically and even if you can get through on your landline, what makes you think you'll rank higher than the thousands of other people calling?

I gave-up my landline a few years ago after being one of the very few people in my circle of friends who did not have a cell phone. I never had both - I switched.

The land line is reasonably enough priced that I *would* have one except for the OVER ONE HUNDRED PERCENT taxes and fees which make it unreasonable!!! Yes, the base landline here is $12/mo. There is another $14/mo in taxes and fees. That's just plain absurd.

So, I paid another $20/mo and got the flexibility of the cell phone with the added features of caller ID, voice mail, etc. that are not included in that base $12 landline package (what's up with CallerID being $7/mo on a landline anyway???)

Greedy archaic landline companies need to get with the times. They've lose me for good, but they might be able to stem the tide of people dropping landlines if they act quickly. HAHAHAHA who am I kidding - they won't do anything and then they'll ask for government money to bolster their failing profits and bail them out of trouble.

I think it depends on where in the country you are-- and what you do for a living. I manage a Network-- so I MUST have DSL-- therefore I MUST have a landline.
And Lastly-- I will keep my Landline because a clear uninterrupted Noise-free Cellphone call every-time, all-the-time is not here yet. I often have to hang up on people who keep yapping even though all I'm hearing is "Yargyl-Blargyl-Wargyl-BLIP!"

My question is this-- How are many of these people getting their Internet Access if they have no landline?

Well well, it seems I'm in that bottom 12.3 percent that doesn't have but a land line. If I lived alone I'd have made the switch some time ago but some things that hold me back are:
1) I use DSL
2) It's not just one cell phone I need to get, it's one for me and my gf. That's at least 70/mo for a few minutes.
3) None of us talks much on the phone.

The solution for me is DSL + VoIP. When Sprint rolls out WiMAX I'll make the change as I'm sure cellphones will come out with VoIP.

-J

@Lonnie: I use DSL but without a landline. I could get a $10 discount for having a landline with the same company, but that doesn't offset the $12 fee + $14 taxes for the line. Prior to living here, I used a cable modem. In neither case did I have a landline.

In the survey, did they count the people whose telephone service is over cable as a land line, or did they only count telephone lines? I don't know how many people have cable telephone service, but I am sure that there must be many of us.

During the hurricanes here in south florida the land lines only lasted hours as the battery operated substaions went down as well as all other power.

During and after Hurricane Katrina my cell phone from New Orleans did not work in Houston because the
cell towers for New Orleans were overloaded. Since I had evacuated I don 't know how long telephone service there lasted. After the storm some areas were unable to get a land line or via Bell South for 12 months but were able to get a Cable phone and internet within 2 months.

Our family of 4 has DSL, 2 land lines, 6 cordless phones, including a 2 line phone, 2 corded phones and 4 cell phones. I am in the "parent" group.

I'm 39. For all intents and purposes, I have not had a land line for about a dozen years. For a couple of years before that, I had a land-line but it was always forwarded to my cell phone. When I moved, it occured to me that I had not unforwarded it for ages and decided there was no point in even having the land line. I did have a land line for a couple of years recently when I needed it to get DSL but there was never a phone hooked up to the line. Now I have a cable modem so I don't need a land line for anything.

For those of you who have a land line just in case of an emergency, better make sure at least one of your phones is wired because all of those cordless phones are pretty useless when the power goes out. And a lot of the reasons people are saying it is good to have one in case of emergency sound like explanations from the phone company to presure people to keep their land-line. I don't buy it. Any time in the last dozen years that my wireless couldn't make a call due to an emergency, the land lines weren't working either. And in an emergency like Katrina, you can't take your home phone with you when the water starts to rise.

My only reason for keeping the land line is our security system. Almost all of them still require a landline to call the security company in case of an alarm. They say that voip is not a reliable way of sending touch tones (yes, how 1980'ish). If the security companies ever get with the program, the land line goes away. Having to keep the landline doubles the cost of the monthly monitoring fee. I have a voip line for work and 2 cells, I don't need this expensive relic

I live in a narrow, deep valley where cell phone reception is impossible. Therefore, a land line is all I have. Sometimes I do wish I had a cell phone with me while traveling, but not very often--- and I don't want to pay for two phone bills. So I'm going to remain cell-less in the foreseeable future.