I’ve been one of those quarter of US households without landline service for the past… I think five or seven years. (The last time I had a landline I was living in San Francisco and I needed one for my Tivo. I don’t even think Tivo needs a landline anymore.) Much ado has been made about the slow death of landline telephone service…
from ReadWriteWeb article
This is a very clear trend (as the ReadWriteWeb article mentions) “younger adults under 35 are more likely to have cut their landlines, but the CDC also reports that the number of wireless-only households increased among all age groups. About half of all adults aged 25 to 29 now live in households that are wireless-only…”
But all that changed last month for my house, as my wife is starting a SEO/marketing business – and she has realized that she can’t rely on her mobile phone connection. (We are on AT&T). She can simply not rely on the constant dropped calls when she is talking with clients, so she needed the reliability of a landline. (No one needs to mention Skype; I’ve never found it to be reliable enough to speak with clients.)
Pundits are now mentioning the upcoming strain on AT&T’s network that will come from the new iPhone 4. Also, it sounds like Android is really taking off – will this stress other carriers networks too?
If cellular networks become clogged, will people who actually need/like to talk on their phone switch back to having landlines?
I have no idea, but in my own little world this has just happened. Has anyone else seen this/experienced this/thought about this?
June 9th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Good question, Healy. I think the idea is that carriers will be building out their networks toward 4G in order to accommodate the increase in traffic. What that means in reality, though, is a whole other story…
I'll say this – if AT&T doesn't improve in 12 months, I'll be going back to Verizon.
June 9th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
As Android gets better and better (plus good apps) Verizon becomes a real option.
June 9th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Verizon already is a real option, but in a year (when my AT&T contract expires), they may be THE option.
June 10th, 2010 at 1:09 am
How do these surveys count VoIP services? I see a lot more people moving to Vonage and such, rather than wireless-only.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Great question and I don’t know the answer! But I’d be willing to bet that by “landline” they are referring to the traditional wire cable controlled by the telco – i.e. Alexander Graham Bell’s invention.