More than a quarter (26.6 percent) of U.S. households use no landline telephones, relying solely on wireless (cell or mobile) phones. In addition, people in 15.9 percent of homes with landlines report that they use wireless phones for all or nearly all of their calls.
Those figures were compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, which has been tracking telephone equipment preferences since 2007. Why does a federal health agency care what phone you use? Well it matters a lot to people who conduct health (and political) surveys, since up to recently these were directed only at people with wired phones, thereby missing a growing segment of the population. Consider that the percentage of wireless-only households has increased significantly in just four years, from 13.6 percent in Jan-June 2007 to 26.6 percent in Jan-June 2010.
Surprisingly, tech-savvy California in 2010 ranked low in terms of the proportion of U.S. adults living in wireless households. Arkansas was tops with 35.2 percent. Rhode Island was at the bottom with 12.8 percent. And the Golden State was 41st with 18.2 percent.
PHOTO CREDIT: Dorothy Hawkinson is one person who doesn't even have a cell phone. She holds her rotary dial, ivory with gold trim phone, she bought in 1981. 2009 Sacramento Bee photo by Paul Kitagaki.
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