Do You Still Have a Landline?

By  |  Monday, May 11, 2009 at 12:28 am

Ars Technica has reported on a National Center for Health Statistics survey that shows the percentage of respondents who have only a cell phone surpassing that of ones who have only a landline for the first time. Slightly over twenty percent of those surveyed aren’t bothering with a landline these days–a fact which one of the NCHS report’s authors reasonably asserts is in part because of the economic state we find ourselves in. If your cell phone gives you decent sound quality, free long distance, and lots of minutes for a reasonable price, paying for it and a landline may sound pointlessly redundant these days.

(Me, I still have a landline–a Comcast VoIP one, to be precise–but I’ve made a grand total of three calls on it in the nine months or so I’ve had it. I keep it for use as a fax line and because I occasionally guest on radio programs whose producers are happiest if I’m not on my cell. But I use my cell most of the time, and Skype as a backup, and if I’m still paying $40 a month for a landline I almost never use a year from now, I’ll be startled.)

How about you?

 
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  1. Esteban Says:

    I haven’t had a landline since the late 20th century. Growing up, my family was the first on the block to dump the phone and switch to broadband and cells.