Report: 25% of U.S. Households Have Gone Wireless-Only

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Beau Lark / Corbis

In a trend that shows few signs of slowing down, one in four U.S. households prefer to do their phone communications via mobile phones rather than utilizing a land line, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control.

The report, which was compiled in the National Health Interview Survey, said the number of people who chose mobile phones only in the latter half of 2009  was up two percentage points from the first six months. Only 15 percent of households have landlines but no mobile phones, about half of the 2006 rate. That same year, only 11 percent of homes had dropped landlines completely. However, trending steadily since the beginning of 2007, six in 10 households keep both a mobile phone and a landline.

The CDC says young people are leading the trend toward mobile phone-only homes because more than a third of people younger than 35 have chosen to not install a landline.

Also, the percentage of children living in wireless-only homes has increased four percentage points from the first six months of 2009, the largest six-month increase since 2003, the report said.

The CDC also found that:

  • Adults living at or near the poverty level were more likely than higher income adults to be living in wireless-only homes.
  • Men were more likely than women to drop landline service completely.
  • More than three in five adults living with unrelated adult roommates were likely to be living in wireless-only homes.