The CDC’s report on wireless substitution – aka canceling your land line for a cellphone – is out and we discover that one in five U.S. households have cut the cable, an increase of 2.7 percent over six months ago. Another tidbit: one in every seven American homes (14.5%) took all their calls on cellphones despite having a landline.
The report polled 12,597 families for 23,726 adults total – there were 8,635 kids under the age of 18 – which makes it a fairly strong sample size. A few other tidbits:
* More than three in five adults living only with unrelated adult roommates (60.6%) were in households with only wireless telephones. This is the highest prevalence rate among the population subgroups examined.
* Nearly two in five adults renting their home (39.2%) had only wireless telephones. Adults renting their home were more likely than adults owning their home (9.9%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
* Men (20.0%) were more likely than women (17.0%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
* Adults living in poverty (30.9%) and adults living near poverty (23.8%) were more likely than higher income adults (16.0%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
It’s interesting to note that these groups self-select along income and gender lines. I know plenty of folks – mostly my older neighbors – who had a land line “just in case” but switched during the New York blackout of 2003 because those “just in case” phones died.
I suspect these numbers will only rise in the next few years. An entire cohort of college kids are landing in their own apartments – college kids who probably haven’t used a land line for most of their lives. Also, why is the CDC tracking this? By figuring out how many kids have been using cellphones since they were in the womb we’ll know if all the brain cancer we’ll all get in about ten years was caused by our Motorola RAZRs and iPhones.
Do you still have a landline?
I have a landline only so I can get ADSL, it’s unused otherwise.
I did not have a landline for the last few years….if you have a cable modem for internet and use cellphone providers like Verizon or AT&T, I dont think you will ever need a landline.
http://www.livbit.com
We’ve still got a landline, but I’m a college-student–and yes, I’ve used only a cell phone for most of my life. If the landline rings in my house, I don’t bother even checking to see who’s calling because I know that anyone who wanted to get in touch with anyone in my family would have called them directly.
I’m not really surprised by these numbers, and I’m confident that they’ll rise in the next few years. I think that, like my family, most families are just keeping the landlines around so that they have somewhere to direct calls which they are not really all that interested in receiving. I can see things like Google Voice changing the framework of this pattern and the customer’s mindset in that regard.
Get rid of your landline!
Ah but how many homes are Magic Jack only?
I’d love to ditch our Vonage “landline” and go cell only. The barrier I have yet to overcome is the wife factor. She wants to be able to use and phone in the house to make a call and for our toddlers to be able to use a phone if needed. Anybody have a solution to tie a cellphone to existing house wiring?
Yep, the unit that will convert your cell phones to landlines is the Cell 2 Tell http://www.cell2telgateway.com
You can bluetooth two iPhones, or cellphones to a wireless handset. You can find these online for $99 . Yah, I just hate to use my cellphone against my brain while I’m at home too, everybody seems to have forgotten about the SAR ratings. Hmm curious that the CDC is tracking if there’s no worry about it, eh?
I don’t have a land line though I have magicjack and cell phone. http://sm.tv/2d
I use landline to call long distance (overseas) and for answering utilities and local businesses instead of giving the main mobile number. Vonage is good for it.
I moved from vonage to magicjack, save more $ http://sm.tv/2d
It would have been useful to outline the demographics. If you look at the average household comprised of individuals in their 20’s, 90% do not have a landline. You will probably find that 90% of married couples in their 50’s and 60’s will have a landline, many of whom also carry a cell phone. It’s really just a matter of time until landlines become obsolete. Baby boomers are supporting the entire industry right now.
I really like that Coors poster. Would look great in my bar.
Landlines with the correct telephone set, work over power outages. Peoples phones didn’t work when the power went out, not the landline.
I haven’t had a landline in over 8 years and I would not go back to it even if it were free. It is the future and it is more convenient. I do remember about 10 years ago, after a long call on my Motorola phone, my ears will be hot and hurting a bit. Maybe the CDC has something up their sleeve for gathering this data.
I have landline only coz its part of the bundle offer by Verizon FiOS i.e. the combined cost of internet and cable service is almost same as cost of the bundle (internet + cable + landline).
I actually don’t need landline:
-I don’t use my landline much.
-Plus am sick and tired of all non-profit organizations calling me on the landline (is there a way to block them?). [Police, Firemen, Army, etc etc]
My family is as cell phone family. But we use magicjack as a cheap backup to keep at-home cell phone minutes within reason.
This is accurate data or only guess?
Is Magic Jack really this big? (And no, I don’t have a land line)
Yep.
I got rid of my cellphone because I didn’t want to be on my sisters plan, that and it was costing too much.
I was going to hook up our old landline (unhoooked because of spam calls) to use just in case I needed to call someone or needed to be called. It didn’t work for some reason.
That’s why I bought the magicJack. Sometimes it might break up and the software isn’t the best when switching from a real telephone to my computer’s headset (it lags quite a bit). I still like it though.
We have a landline, but only for the alarm. No phone is hooked up.
The downside of only using a cell is you have to remember to carry it with you in the house. It would be great to have a context-aware system that knew I was home and routed cell calls to phones in the house, but otherwise we had no distinct landline number.
indeed. cell only for 5 years now.
Great. So now we have all this fiber on poles and underground that’s barely going to be used.
Knowledgeable readers: can we turn this into more internets & at a decent speed?
Not exactly “barely going to be used”.
When anyone talks about mobile communications, there are the handsets or end user equipment and then there is the base station that coordinates all those endpoints. Most commonly, these are seen as cell towers.
These cell towers have to be connected to each other for their own communications, hand offs as you move (you know, being mobile!), as well as gaining access to the Internet for the egress traffic that you might have on your smart phone or mobile device.
The term for how these towers connect and get from tower to tower or tower to Internet (or large telephone switching centers for legacy voice traffic) is often referred to as backhaul.
Backhaul is of two varieties typically. There is a wireless backhaul which is measured in throughput terms like T1 with some microwave systems taking this to larger throughput. Sometimes the wireless backahaul is insufficient and as a result, you’ll find that fiber is actually the method for backhaul.
What is coming as more people get mobile, more data hungry while mobile, and more likely to avoid a tethered experience (regular Ethernet or WiFi connecting a desktop or laptop in a home) is a few things:
1) The fiber on poles and in the ground will become much more used for the Internet oriented traffic that will be seen by mobile handsets rising in popularity coming from those cell towers.
2) The fiber on poles and in the ground will take larger portions of voice traffic from cell towers than from remotes and Central Office (regular telephony switching centers).
3) The fiber on poles and in the ground will become increasingly valuable and subject to concerns similar to the earlier times in telecommunications when these were exclusive single company owner networks. i.e. you’ll see the regulations and government bodies taking careful note of one or two companies controlling access to the new Internet highways — not your ISP’s internet… but your mobile phone internet.
More Internet and more speed will happen. The question is how much will be controlled, metered, and nickel/dimed to the subscriber (that’s you) for what is being delivered.
Wireless backhaul hasn’t gotten a lot of coverage. It’s pretty inside baseball in terms of the way it all works… but if you’ve noticed that your mobile performance has been lacking — wireless backhaul is the likely culprit.
Here’s what AT&T quietly released a few days ago as some kind of “oh, it’s not a backhaul issue” blurb… and yet, for all the talk — it’s still masking the actual issue: Lack of capacity planning.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/05/10/att-to-begin-implementing-n-set-in-an-effort-to-reduce-3g-network-strain/
AT&T has to improve their backhaul. I haven’t seen that hit the press anywhere yet.
Contrast this with Verizon who has offered to sell access (this heads off any government intervention… i.e. these guys aren’t dumb) to their wireless (fiber) backhaul network.
http://gigaom.com/2009/03/26/verizon-rents-out-its-fiber-for-lte-backhaul/
So, in summary: backhaul is something a lot of folks don’t know about but goes to explain a great deal of the frustration people have with the mobile Internet as we know it today (you know, as regularly paying monthly consumers).
I presume there is a steady decline in PSTN phone lines at the last leg as more and more corporates are switching to VOIP based phones and as wireless technology is getting faster and devices are getting advances more and more consumers are opting for wireless phones.
Geez I hope they never have to call someone in an emergency. When the 35W bridge collapsed here in Minneapolis the cell network was useless within 30 minutes of the event.
We still have a landline, but with all possible extra cost services removed. This leaves a $10-15/month bill. It’s primarily for FAX use (medical or legal documents). An answering machine is not plugged in and all of the phone ringers have been turned off. That cuts down on those pesky callers asking for money. Anyone that we know knows to use our cell numbers. For a long duration conference call, I’ll plug in the speakerphone. A calling card suffices for any long distance faxes. An, in an emergency, an unpowered handset can still call out.
It’s a very real trend I see among my friends and family. Only two out of the 30+ people that I can think of right now have landlines. The rest, like myself, have only the cell. I used to be concerned about the reliability of my cell because the reception was really not that great even in my home. About a year and a half ago I changed to the NET10 prepaid service and my reception is now a lot better. During this time I made 2 emergency calls (for other people) and both times had no problem. So I decided to let go of the landline which was not being used anyway. The only calls I ever received on it were from telemarketers.
Of all my friends and family, nobody seems to have landlines anymore. I have a NET10 prepaid phone myself and it has never disappointed me before. Plus I can take my cell anywhere. Landlines are going to disappear as cell phones get better and more reliable.
Due to this type of convergence to a single mobile phone number for multiple uses, we have come up with a method to share your phone number as a web link (e.g. letscallme.com/john). This creates a privacy layer and allows for notification of who the inbound call is coming from – and makes caller ID blocking impossible.
Check it out at http://www.letscallme.com. Add real control to your phone, particularly if you are channeling everything through one number.
How many people have Vonage, Magic Jack or any other VIOP service ?
I only use my cell phone when im not at home or in an office, when im out somewhere thats the only time I use my cell phone.
I have a landline thats actually used, area I live in has lots of power outages so in case of emergency or when the power goes out until I get a solar powered cell phone or fuel cell one I will keep a landline. Its better to have it and not need it than to not have it and need it.
What about p2p? can you easly use bittorent/emule just with your cell?
The only reason i still have a landline is broadband internet :/
Haven’t had a landline for ten years. What’s the point?
So, then what’s connecting your computer to the internet? And don’t smugly say cable because there are a lot of areas that only offer phone service over cable now.
I live in Florida and during one of the hurricanes in 2005, the cell phones were the first ones to go. Land lines went down after 8 hours or so. I hope cell phone companies have backup power.
Did my (verbose) comment get deleted?
:)
nevermind :)
I had to fight my wife tooth and nail to keep a landline out of our home…
I eventually won.
Joe – 1
Unwanted Phone Calls from Mom-In-Law – 0
Do you think its because more people are getting laid off and cutting the chord because its just one more unnecessary bill to pay?
I’d bet cancel ling a land line is one of the easiest decisions to make when its time to adjust the budget.
I don’t know many people who have land lines at home anymore.
I thought CDC was tracking the swine flu outbreak :-)
For me, I don’t like the idea of having only a cell phone because I don’t want to give the number out to *everybody*. I want to have another number that I can give out, and then have it routed to voicemail or to my cell phone or my PC etc depending on whose calling. That gives me more control over who gets through to my cell. Services like Google Voice or Toktumi are good for that scenario, and cheaper than a landline.
cellular repeaters are making the shift away from landlines even easier…. making it easier for people to drop dual lines and consolidating multiple bills into one.
We have a landline connected, but I would have no idea how to use it to make a call. It’s buried in the garage somewhere I think. Our satellite uses it I think to download updates. Otherwise i would get rid of it.
Perhaps this is why reverse cell phone searches are becoming more and more popular i.e. the white pages is basically extinct for anyone younger than 35?
Actually, it was a very satisfying feeling to tell AT&T what they could do with their over-priced and less than stellar cell phone system and service. After using it for eight years, being forced at gunpoint (nearly) to ‘upgrade’ because they had obsoleted their current technology (new service contract I did not want), I decided a landline would serve my interests just fine. After all, when in the heck would I ever use 2500 roll-over minutes? If I’m not home? Leave a message. If it’s important, call me at work or call back. Now I can use both hands for driving unlike about 50% of the drivers I encounter.
Landlines are going the way of the buffalo. http://bit.ly/ndvmp
I’m glad to see the Americans are at last catching up with rest of the world.
I’m in Malaysia and I still have a landline which I have hardly used since I got my first mobile phone in 1996.
Today I have six registered postpaid cellular lines plus a company cellular number (which makes seven), three prepaid numbers (which I don’t regularly top up), five cellphones, two wireless cellular data modems plus two desktop wireless broadband modems.
I have no wife or kids but let my aunt use one of my six postpaid numbers.
Now that’s a guy who about 15 years ago thought of cellphones as a yuppie toy but it’s interesting how even the people with the lowest income use cellphones.
Hmmm! Perhaps one day, the telcos will figure out how to make having a landline a premium item for the wealthy — just like analogue windup mechanical watches are premium items today compared to cheap digitals.
We have a landline for four reasons
in no particular order
1. The Security system we have uses it.
2. The land line works during power outages. We kept one old style handset when we went cordless: we lost power for 2 hrs this morning.
3. We have an old stone farmhouse with 18 inch. thick walls, cell reception isn’t great indoors.
4. We still occasionally send and get faxes (when dealing with some of the more primitive members of our acquaintance.
I only use a landline and see no need to use a Radioactive Walkytalky. The CDC is keeping these statistics to track Brain Cancer studies. Lived for 25 years next to one of The largest Hospitals in the world and was shocked at the increase in Brain Cancer. It is only the dumbed down young and older people trying to be hip who use cells. Just leave a message on my landline if I am out. I do not like to be disturbed while I am out. Only use a cell if lost or arriving after a long drive.
I had one of the first cell phones and PDA’s and every iteration since then and have truly learned to hate them. Yes if you use a digital phone in a blackout it will not work (duh…needs power). Landlines with old fashioned power by their circuits work all times. Whever there is a crisis cell phone networks get busy and unreliable very fast. Not so with land lines. Most communications by cell and PDA are pointless and time wasters. And if you compare the cost of land line vs. cell, land line is cheaper. My bill is under $50 for unlimited service for landline. The only thing cheaper is digital over the Internet. In terms of quality, I can always tell when I’m being called by a cell. Landline is clear and crisp. However I have no doubt that the folly of cell will eventually drive land line out-of-business since the cost to maintain infrastructure will become too high. Immediately after there will be a solar flare that will fry all those satellites. But clearly landline is a distinguishing difference between haves and have nots. Yes I have a cell phone. it sucks.
the cdc is tracking it cause the electromagnetic radiation is going to give you all cancer.
I had one of the first cell phones and upgraded all the time.
But I have read the research. I turned off my iPhone.
We live with a landline only.
BTW, the iPhone will still work as an iPod and camera and you can jump on Wifi too. (but again, Wifi is radiation–avoid it)
Don’t people need landline phones when activating new credit cards?
kids will ask why our generation was so stupid to use microwaves devices when they didnt have to