This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply. Aaron Pressman, writing for Fortune: It’s official: For the first time, a majority of American homes have only wireless telephones. The trend to drop landlines has been growing over the last decade alongside the growth in mobile phone use, according to semi-annual surveys performed by the Centers for Disease Control, which wants to monitor how to contact people for future surveys. But it wasn’t until the end of 2016 that a majority of all households relied solely on mobile phones. Since leaving my parent’s home for college, I’ve never had a landline. I doubt I ever will. Expand - View Original
I'm Floridian. One year we had a few hurricanes back to back to back and had no power for like 2 weeks. The 'ol landlane (non chordless) came in handy since they don't require power. But yeah, other than that, not too sure. I'm surprised this number isn't more.
My home is in a rural area and I don't have enough service to maintain calls. Turning on wifi calling was destroying the battery life on my phone. I could probably live with just having texting but in the case of needing to dial 911 or something serious I feel more comfortable with a land line.
I'm honestly surprised the number of landlines is that high. I suppose like some in here have mentioned, there's probably a lot of rural areas that don't get reception. I don't think anyone in my family still has a landline, not even my grandparents. I had one for a brief period a year ago, but that was only to bundle with my internet to get the price down, lol (I saved $30 by adding a phone line I never even bothered to hook a phone up to).
I live in Vermont and we still have spotty service at best. Landlines are pretty much still a priority outside of the bigger towns and cities here.
I technically pay for a home phone now through Xfinity because "the bundle is cheaper" but it's never been hooked up. But otherwise haven't ever had one and my mom got rid of hers easily over 10 years ago
This news, and comments to this topic is shocking to me, but I guess it makes sense. I am the odd one out who always has his cell phone off unless I'm out somewhere, and need to make a call (although, I generally keep my phone off even then...). Unlike peers my age, I'm not always on my phone, and don't have a reason to play with them (I'm 25 years old btw). Personally though, I will still be using landlines for as long as they offer them. They're so convenient for reasons people said. Plus it just makes more sense to have more phone numbers, and an answering machine at home to me. I guess I'm just old fashioned that way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've been considering landline because I need to be standing against my apartment windows to get a clear cell reception and sometimes the lack of service fails to alert me of a missed call until much later >_>. I'm afraid of missing a call from the pizza guy ;) haha Plus, corded phones working in a power outage is pretty nice
The other interesting side of things is how many traditional data sources used for planning and governance relied on landline calls. Whether they be transportation surveys used for transportation planning, or other such things that are more important than people know, it's interesting in public service (and I'm sure the private sector) seeing people try and come up with solutions in this modern day and age to find alternative sources or methods, despite the fact we're all generating an outrageous amount of data with our devices.