Ditching Your Land Line For a Mobile Phone

More and more Americans are choose to cut the wire of their traditional land line phones in favor of mobile phones. A survey of 24,514 adults, 9,122 children from over 13,000 households revealed some interesting results.

A "wireless family" is a group of people that live together and do not have a land line but at least one of them has a mobile phone.

Wireless only households are on the rise, in 2004 only 1 in 18 adults were part of a wireless family, this had increased to 1 in 8. At the time of writing this is now reported to be 1 in 6 that own a mobile phone but do not have a land line phone.

56% of adults that are living in rented accommodation tend to be part of a wireless family. While only 7% of adults that own their home have made the move to be part of a wireless family.

It would also appear that age is a major factor in whether or not you have decided to ditch your land line for good. 18-24 and 25-29 year olds are most likely to ditch their land line. Surprisingly, adults living in poverty were also reported to have ditched the land line and just use a mobile phone.

Although there are a lot of households that have both a land line and mobile phone, 22 percent stated that they make and receive all or almost all calls on mobile phones. "wireless-mostly family" account for 13 percent of households in the states.

Would you consider yourself a wireless family? I personally only have a landline because it is required for ADSL broadband internet access, if a landline wasnt required then I wouldnt have one, but I have no choice. There isnt even a phone plugged into it, in fact I dont even own a normal phone and have relied solely on my mobile phone for a few years now. Its the ultimate convenience and a fixed line phone cannot compete with that, call prices have fallen in line over the years to make it affordable for most people.

This increasing trend isn't surprising, mobile phones are ultimately more convenient for anyone making or receiving a call. However the decline in fixed landlines is concerning as broadband is generally delivered through phone lines. As people move away from land line phones, we may expect to see increased broadband prices to help compensate the loss of business.