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households posts

Cellphone-only households on the rise, landlines crying a river

by Darren Murph posted May 15th 2008 @ 10:31AM

Hold everything -- did you have any idea surging cellphone use was putting a damper on landline utilization? Oh, right, common knowledge. Anywho, a recent study conducted here in America found that three in ten households actually relied solely or primarily on their mobile to communicate. In the latter half of 2007, it was discovered that 16-percent of domiciles didn't even have a landline, while 13-percent had one but took all (or nearly all) of their calls via cell. Just to put things in perspective, only 5-percent of US homes were cellphone-only in 2004, while 1.082-percent had not yet surrendered their can-and-string. If you're one of those number lovers, hold your head up high and hit the read link for lots more data about this totally engrossing topic.

[Image courtesy of Preston LNO]

Over an eighth of US households are totally mobile

by Chris Ziegler posted Dec 12th 2007 @ 10:22AM

As long as we continue to not drop dead from the use of cellphones in our daily lives, the move away from landlines seems totally inevitable for obvious reasons: convenience, portability, having a single point of contact, the list goes on. The Center for Disease Control's National Health Interview Survey validates that Americans feel the same way, showing an upward tick in the number of homes that have gone exclusively mobile (a weird survey to be fleshing out such fascinating stats on the wireless industry, but whatevs). Overall, 13.9 percent said they've ditched the landlines, but the real story seems to be in the breakdowns; 28 percent of renters were mobile-only compared to just 6.7 percent of homeowners. The 25 to 29 year old age bracket was the most likely to rely solely on their cellphones, with 18 to 24 coming in second -- probably because they're still living under their old-skool parents' roofs, we'd imagine. Homes under the poverty level were also more likely to go strictly with their mobiles, and finally -- here's the CDC's health tie-in -- mobile folks were far more likely to be binge drinkers, smokers, and lack health insurance, though they were also more likely to work out in their spare hours. Now if you'll excuse us, we've gotta go hit the treadmill.