The National Health Interview Survey of about 19,000 people in the second half of 2015 found that very nearly half of all adults – and nearly two-thirds of adults under age 35 – have no landline phone. They’re wireless only. More than half of America’s children live in such homes too.
Here’s the whole report. To me, this stood out:
Adults living in the Midwest (51.4%), South (51.3%), and West (51.2%) were more likely than those living in the Northeast (31.4%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
I’m surprised the Northeast is so far behind the rest of the country in transitioning away from landline phones. This seems surprising because the Northeast is generally more educated and well-off, which I would associate with smartphones … but looking at the data more closely gives hints as to why: Poorer people are actually more likely to be wireless-only at home, and Hispanic adults, which are more common in other parts of the country, are the ethnic category with the highest wireless-only percentage.
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Several observations.
I wonder if having a landline correlates with the type of broadband service you have. If you have DSL a landline pretty much comes as part of the package so states with a higher percentage of DSL will probably have a higher percentage of landline use.
During extended power outages here in snowy NH an old fashioned plain old telephone service (POTS) landline tends to be more reliable than other types of telephony.
On the flip side if you are younger and move around a lot not having a telephone tied to your location is a plus. Neither of our children have landlines.