15% of US Households Have Only a Mobile Phone
According to the PEW Internet and American Life Project: “A growing number of Americans rely solely on a cell phone for their telephone service, and many more are considering giving up their landline phones.”
In my post of June 14th, I reported that 11% of US adults now use only a mobile phone to place phone calls. But it’s even greater than I thought.
Government statistics as of December 2006 showed that at least 12.8% of US households have only a cell phone and no landline telephone. Given the growth rate from the previous periods, that number today is probably around 15%.
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I’d drop my land line in a heartbeat if only my satellite TV receiver didn’t require one. I’d save $30 a month and buy more mobile phone peak time minutes.
Give it 15 years — the wired telephone will go the way of the operator-connected calls and rotary phones.
We have satellite without a phone line. Only cell phones. No reason for land line.
That leads me to ask what the church is doing with cell phones? Do y’all actively think about cell phone compatibility? I have a blackberry and access some things online, but am just wondering what else I might be missing!
We are making plans to make our Web sites more compatible for viewing on cell phones. We have higher priorities right now (like translating the core sites into multiple languages), but we’ll get to the cell phone issues.
I’ve noticed this trend for a while; some find it is worth it in long distance costs alone. The other minority is those using VoIP (Vonage, Skype, etc.)
The drawback? In emergency situations concerning power blackouts, the cell phone is completely dead. (Telephone lines are independent of electrical lines.) If you’re at home, you’ll have to wait until the power is restored. If you’re caught on the street, you’ll have to hope you can find a pay phone.
Personally, I would like to see the existing analog landlines upgraded to digital.
It’s all well and good that people don’t have only mobile phones, but if you’re one of those people, and you move to a new area, PLEASE update your mobile phone with a local number.
There’s nothing so annoying as to look up someone on the ward list and realize you might have to either use your minutes or make a long-distance call to call someone 2 blocks away, because they insist on “representing the 801″.
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