Most American households have abandoned their landlines

[StyM]

https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/05/...eir-landlines/

A US Health Department study has confirmed that most US citizens have completely stopped using landline phones -- shocking no-one. In a report released today, the government revealed that 50.8 percent of American households are now cellphone-only, with just 39.4 percent using both a mobile and a landline. That leaves a measly 6.5 percent of US homes that just use a landline, with the remaining 3.2 percent not owning a phone of any kind. The declining interest in landlines likely has one major culprit: the smartphone.

When the same study was conducted ten years ago, just 15 percent of American households were wireless only. Given the meteoric rise of cellphones, the results of the latest report are hardly surprising. With people increasingly relying on smartphones for access to work emails, GPS and the utterly essential Tinder, that tethered, internet-free landline starts to look a little redundant in 2017.

The government's survey reflected this, with over 70 percent of 25-34-year-olds reportedly only owning a cellphone. Strangely, adults living with children were more likely to be wireless-only than a household of just related adults. With at least one parent usually having to work, families with kids most likely rely heavily on cellphones to keep in touch on the go. Remember: there's Facetime now.

As you'd expect with any consumer electronics study, income also plays a fairly large part here. Interestingly, adults who were close to or below the poverty were far more likely to be wireless-only than those who were well off. Although honestly, the landline probably isn't the sexy status symbol that young people are striving towards.

[MikeB12]

Agreed. I wish I could ditch my land line. Unfortunately the best and only reliable fiber optic internet service in my rural area is a local telephone company. They will not give you an internet line unless you get a landline phone also. I have verizon as my cell, so having a landline for phone in a waste. I only want the fiber optic internet, yet they won't allow that. So it forces me to signup for both packages and pay more. Comcast is in the area, but all the lines are still analog and experience packet loss like crazy because of old lines. It's shame, but after years of trying--if I want to use the internet at fiber optic speeds, I have to pay for a landline too. I'm not going to reveal the name of the company that's doing this, but it's a monopoly over a small town to line their pockets with the ignorance of it's population. Most of the people here just pay it, but I know better; coming from bigger cities and being a network engineer for the past 25yrs.