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Thursday May 7, 2009
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 For quite some time now, the number of people in the U.S. that have dropped landlines in favor of cell phones has gradually increased. However, it seems we've reached a milestone. According to the Associated Press, the number of U.S. households opting for only cell phones has for the
first time surpassed those that just have traditional landlines.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey released Wednesday said that fully 20 percent of U.S. households only had cell phones in the second half of 2008. That's a three point increase since the first half of 2008--a big jump, statistically speaking--and also three points higher than the 17 percent of households with landlines but no cell phones.
For comparison purposes, in 2003, just three percent of households were wireless only, whereas a whopping 43 percent had landlines but no cell phones yet. In the meantime, about 60 percent of households have both landlines and cell phones. The report attributed the accelerated shift to the recession, and the fact that the cell phone offers extra features--namely, mobility and texting, among others--that landlines generally don't have.
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May 7, 2009 4:50 PM
I dumped my land line last year and now have only a cell phone. But I went a step further and got a Tracfone and pay upfront for use. It’s much more cost-effective and the service is fine.
The only reason I’d kept my landline was to send faxes but I do that on the Internet now, so who needs a landline?
Plus I have no contract anymore for my phone and the quality is great.
May 7, 2009 6:03 PM
Landline phone were at onetime over price and people like me in the early 90's switch to cell phone. When mama bell was making it cheaper and easy to own a cell phone. Now, Mama Bell (ATT&T)know people want convience, live fast life styles, and cell phone offer more value for the money. If you get a pre-paid phone, you better than a contract. Cell phone companies that offer contract treat you like the old days. When Mama Bell (Verizon, T-Mobil, AT&T, etc) charge you for everything from placing and ording the phone, rebates to lure you too buy the phone. Just to charge you these over rated prices on your first bill. Its all the same soon they will offer landline for less, like Uverse and cable at faster pace that attach calls to your handheld phone.
May 7, 2009 10:50 PM
Works for me, I haven't had a land-line since...02? 03? Haven't missed it at all!
May 8, 2009 5:51 PM
It doesn't surprise me that people are dropping landlines to use cell phones exclusively given the universal desire to cut costs in this tough economy. To that point, I wanted to add that consumers can save additional money by using the internet to vastly lower their business or personal cell bill. In particular, there's one great new blog called fixmycellbill.blogspot.com/ that constantly tracks new ways to cut wireless costs and exposes shady billing practices utilized by the cell phone companies. Also, check out the consumer advocacy website where I (admittedly) work, fixmycellbill.com , that slashes the average cell bill by 22 percent. Through the site, which is powered by a company called Validas, we have currently audited over 26,000 cell lines and have saved consumers nearly $5 million off their wireless bills. You can see Validas in the national news media, most recently on Good Morning America at http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6887412&page=1.
Good luck to everyone reading on cutting expenses in the recession.
Dylan
May 11, 2009 11:50 AM
I think the landline is on its way out of U.S. households, for good. Wrote about that here, http://bit.ly/ndvmp.