More Americans are dropping their landlines, according to reports in Ars Technica and USA Today. One in every six US households have no landline service:
Even among households that had both landlines and mobile phones, 22.3 percent received “all or almost all” calls on mobile phones. So-called “wireless-mostly” account for 13.1 percent of all households.
This is just more bad news for the ILECs and RBOCs, as well as Hawaiian Telcom.
It’s possible to use DSL or a cable modem to keep a landline number at home, of course. Eat Our Brains wrote an article on this back in 2006. Ars Technica mentioned naked DSL, which helps smart consumers reduce their telecom costs by getting DSL service without a landline voice number.
Meanwhile, a recent survey indicates that 20% of Americans have never sent an email message. Half of these respondents were over 65. Also, 56 percent had no schooling beyond high school.
The poll indicated that 18% of American households do not have Internet access in the homes.
See this PC World article for more details.
Related posts on billso.com
- 22 February 2008: Customer lock-in
- 18 August 2007: HawTel to offer naked DSL and faster downloads
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