Some very interesting statistics have been revealed lately by, of all entities, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta.  Yes, that very same organization that typically brings tales of woe and warning about rare, exotic and nearly-pandemic diseases.  Seems that they were doing a study of American health habits and ran into a problem trying to reach a certain demographic... the ones that have only wireless phones.  And that demographic is growing - rapidly.  The question I have is, should I become one of them?

Here are some interesting statistics about wireless-only users:

• About half of all adults that have only wireless phones are under 30 years old
• 12.5% of all households in the U.S. are wireless-only
• A greater percentage of lower income households are wireless only than middle or higher income households.

It all makes sense to me and I've asked myself a hundred times why I still have a landline.  So now I'm asking myself again - and this time in public - why I still pay $45/month (before taxes; it's roughly $60/month after you add in all the regulatory fees, taxes, etc.) for a landline phone line.  Moreover, we've got two landlines in the house - one for personal and one for my business - so the total comes to about $125/month for landline phones that I'm not sure are worth even a fraction of that.  Now, that's not all the money in the world, but doing the math it's about $1500/year.  All of a sudden, when you look at it that way, it appears to be serious money. 

So I've tried looking at it strictly economically and thought that if we were to go completely, strictly wireless, I'd probably have to upgrade our wireless plan to one with more minutes.  Then again, I've had a 2100 minute/month plan for a couple of years because, I figured, sharing the bucket of minutes with three other family members we'd need that many.  But what's happened is that we've now accumulated about 15,000 rollover minutes (yes, we're with Cingular/AT&T).  So even if I were to go strictly wireless and exceed the alloted 2100 minutes by a factor of 50% it would take me more than a year before I had to move to the next-highest level of minutes... and even then it's only another $20/month to do so. 

But while the economics are compelling there are other issues. 

1. Quality.  The first and foremost issue in my mind is the quality of the calls - both what I hear and what people at the other end hear.  And, while I've got the best phones, the best Bluetooth headsets and (incredibly) five bars of coverage in my house, the sound just isn't the same as a landline - especially when using my trusty Panasonic digital corded phone (probably the best, clearest-sounding phone of any kind I've ever used, anywhere).  
   
2. Convenience.  Sure, the phones are small and there's almost always a pocket to slide my phone into, and I do have it with me 99% of the time anyway because I use the calendar, address book, browser, text messaging, etc., functions constantly.  But there is a level of convenience in picking up any extension when the landline rings without having to grab for the cell phone that I left on the couch or my desk.*
   
3. Safety.  I live in earthquake territory.  If there's a quake and the power goes out, what's the likelihood that the cell phones would keep on working?  Experience shows that it's not particularly high - disasters in other cities (Katrina, power failures in NYC, etc.) indicate that when the power is out, the cell phones either are out, or are so jammed that it's impossible to get a call through.  I've had this discussion with my Mom, too, who depends on her cell phone for lots of reasons, but won't ditch her landline because she lives in Florida - hurricane alley - and has a cheap, corded phone in the closet with the candles, flashlight batteries and other emergency supplies because the experience of people there that she knows who have been through it indicates that the vast majority of times the landlines keep working while cell phones do not. 
   

*(NOTE: I did actually look into finding a product that I could connect my cell phone to that would then connect to the wiring in my house, allowing me to answer - and make - calls using a standard telephone plugged into the regular RJ-11 phone jacks around the house.   None exist right now on the market that I could find, but there is a patent for one by 3Com - for those of you interested you can find it HERE.  So, at the least, I expect them to license that product - it was patented in 2000 - sometime soon and make it available to the public.  This would be a huge hit, in my opinion, as it would give wireless-only households the option to use the wiring that's built into every home, apartment, mobile home, etc., for cheap extensions and to use their cell phone as the base station that makes them all work.) 

But even with these arguments I still wonder.  I mean, should I plan my life around when the next earthquake will be?  If I'm already carrying my iPhone around the house because it's really more a computer that makes phone calls and, it seems, I always have something I need to do on the computer, how much convenience is added by having the extension phones available to make and receive calls?  If it's costing me $1500 to maintain a service that I could conceivably do without - and not miss it - why do I hold on to it? 

Funny, but there are probably few people in the world that can claim to be as wireless-centric as I am and yet I am having mental gyrations over, pardon the pun, pulling the plug on the landline phone.  There's hardly anything I can't - or don't - do on my cell phone... and generally I can do a whole lot more than on my landline phone (free features like call forwarding, caller ID, call waiting - and how about totally free long distance?) but yet I'm having trouble making the break.  It's a mental thing, to be sure, but I'm different than that group I mentioned at the top of this post who make up half of all wireless-only adults... I'm way beyond age 30 and have lived with landlines for a long time.  I've had a mobile, portable or pocket phone for almost 30 years now, too, but my experiences with dropped calls, depleted batteries and more have given me a different feeling than I have for the old-technology, but remarkably reliable, landline phone.  

In short, I'm figuring that relinquishing the landline is a foregone conclusion - I just don't know when it's going to happen.  Probably sooner rather than later, but I don't know when "sooner" will be. 

I'll keep you posted.