CDC: Number of wireless-only households at all-time high

More than a year ago, my wife and I sat down and went through our budget. In essence, we went Galt on as much as could be spared. One of the best decisions that we made back then was getting rid of our land line entirely and go with just cell phones. We had already switched from AT&T to Vonage, but why pay for a land line when we both have cell phones? Well, the fax was an issue, but I ended up going with a web-based fax service for $10 per month and love it! So we went from paying about $65 to AT&T (phone + fax) to about $40 with Vonage (phone + fax) to $10 for the online fax service with no land line whatsoever. Even better, we still use our wireless home phone headsets through bluetooth with our cell phones, which is a huge convenience. Ironically, we went with an AT&T offering for linking up our cell phones to the home headsets:Sometimes the bluetooth needs to be reset, but other than that, it's been better than Vonage was. Looks like we're not the only ones that have kicked the land line to the curb. The CDC data points to ever-increasing cell phone-only households. And why not? It makes sense financially and at least I haven't seen a downside to it.

The Silicon Valley Mercury News reports:

We're by no means a wireless nation yet, but with a push from the recession, for the first time American homes with cell phones but no landline outnumbered those with landlines but no wireless devices.

The crossover occurred in the last half of 2008, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with a nearly 3 percentage point jump in wireless-only households in the second half of 2008. The CDC released the new data on American cell phone usage Wednesday.

Just over 20 percent of American homes are cell phone-only now, while 17 percent of households have landlines but no cell phones. About 60 percent have both, and 1.9 percent have no phone at all.

About a quarter of the households with both types of phone service are "mostly wireless," making calls on cell phones and using landlines only for computers and faxes.

The jump in wireless-only households is the largest six-month increase the center has recorded since it began collecting the data in 2003, said Stephen J. Blumberg, a CDC health scientist and the author of the study.

The cell phone-only group still lags behind Europe, where in some countries half the population is cell phone-only.

"There is no evidence that the growth in the wireless-only population is slowing down," Blumberg said. "If anything, it may be increasing right now." He said he "wouldn't be surprised if we're (at European wireless levels) in five, maybe 10 years."

The trend is looking pretty darned linear as far as I can tell. I wouldn't doubt it that the current recession has added a lot more cell-only households just this year. Of course, with the pace of the CDC, we won't be purvey to that information until next year. That's government for you...

I searched through Google to see who was up on this and Ace of Spades seemed to be the only one who had something unique to say on it. I didn't see this when I first read through the Mercury News piece, but Ace is correct on this: Mission creep at the CDC. Says Purple Avenger:

The CDC is starting to look like the commerce clause in the US Constitution - bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.

If Obama and Congress want to save a few bucks, maybe they should look into getting the CDC back on target and leave this sort of "study" to outfits like Gartner, and all the various pollsters.

It was bad enough with all the faked up firearms shit they wasted money on - even those could quasi-understood if you put your tin foil hat on, took a big gulp of left wing KookAid, and squinted your eyes a bit after gobbling 10 hits of blotter acid.

But, cell phone usage? Please...

Indeed...

UPDATE: The system we have at home, pictured above, is the AT&T TL92328 Dect 6.0 Bluetooth Enabled Cordless Phone.