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20% of Americans Drop Landline for Cell: Study

20% of households only use cell phones

By Ambreen Ali, Newser User

Posted May 6, 2009 2:39 PM CDT

(Newser) – As Americans trim their spending, more are getting rid of landlines. In the second half of last year, 20% of households had only cell phones, outnumbering for the first time the 17% who had just landlines. The 3% jump from the first half of 2008 is the largest increase since the government began the survey in 2003, the AP reports.

The number of exclusively mobile users is actually higher, because 15% of those with landlines use them only to connect to the Internet. Younger people, renters, Hispanics, Southerners, Midwesterners, and the poor were more likely than others to live in wireless households. The trend complicates how polls are conducted and makes surveying more expensive, the study notes.

[Images (2)]

[Quotes (1)]

The recession has helped speed up a trend of declining land lines, the government report shows. (Shutter stock)

Americans are increasingly ditching landlines and going wireless. (©tornatore)

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We do expect that with the recession, we'd see an increase in the prevalence of wireless only households, above what we might have expected had there been no recession.
- Stephen Blumberg, senior CDC scientist and the report's author

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20% of Americans Drop Landline for Cell: Study