20% of Americans Drop Landline for Cell: Study

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. (More cell phones stories.)