More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones • Hacker News Board

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#11

Post by tofumatt » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:27 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #6

davidu wrote: post #4

That's it? I'd expect it to be much higher. I wonder what the percentage is in an urban city like San Francisco... 80%?

Agreed. What are landlines good for? Even if they were free I wouldn't have one, since when I did have a landline pretty much every call was phone spam.

Family households, especially ones with kids who aren't old enough to have a cellphone but need to use a phone. If you have a five and seven year-old in your house, a $30/month landline might make more sense than two cellphones that would never leave the house anyway.

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#12

Post by alexophile » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:28 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #6

davidu wrote: post #4

That's it? I'd expect it to be much higher. I wonder what the percentage is in an urban city like San Francisco... 80%?

Agreed. What are landlines good for? Even if they were free I wouldn't have one, since when I did have a landline pretty much every call was phone spam.

Same - the last time I had a landline was in my college dorm room and it kept getting spam calls until we eventually disconnected it.

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#13

Post by Legion » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:33 PM UTC

davidu wrote: post #4

That's it? I'd expect it to be much higher. I wonder what the percentage is in an urban city like San Francisco... 80%?

I'm not surprised it's not higher, as people of that age bracket are increasingly staying at home and delaying their move out of the parental domicile.

I bet if the numbers were 25-29 year olds who had all left home, it would be significantly higher. I bet very few people in that bracket are actually making the decision to activate a landline in their own places.

I am 29 for a few blessed more months, and I have been landline-free since, well, leaving home for college and my own place. Had I been one of those stay-at-home-until-your-30s types, though, I would fall on the landline side of the statistical breakdown.

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#14

Post by rythie » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:34 PM UTC

I've got one but I almost never use it, just need it for ADSL. In the U.K. I don't see how you avoid one when cable companies give it for free and 3G is too slow and expensive for home.

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#15

Post by frossie » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:34 PM UTC

Only 16 percent of Northeasterners live in cell phone-only homes, the lowest of any region. The highest frequency of wireless-only households is in the South, where 29 percent live that way.

Can anyone here figure out the reason behind the statistic? I could imagine cell-phone-only usage being lower than average in rural areas with poor coverage, but the Northeast?

For the commenters asking "what good are landlines for", they still have their uses, eg. in households with children not allowed their own mobiles for various reasons, lower international call rates etc. (I know, you could say "VoIP" but the mainstream penetration of that seems to be on the low side).

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#16

Post by ericflo » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:36 PM UTC

rubashov wrote: post #9

hugh3 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. What are landlines good for? Even if they were free I wouldn't have one, since when I did have a landline pretty much every call was phone spam.

> What are landlines good for? Clear, high quality voice communication. I rarely talk on my cell phone. It's essentially for text. I try to call people at their landlines.

Let me guess: iPhone?

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#17

Post by stonemetal » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:38 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #6

davidu wrote: post #4

That's it? I'd expect it to be much higher. I wonder what the percentage is in an urban city like San Francisco... 80%?

Agreed. What are landlines good for? Even if they were free I wouldn't have one, since when I did have a landline pretty much every call was phone spam.

They make a great discount on your internet bill. Seriously though Some internet providers either make it cheaper to have phone + internet from them or make it impossible( or at least hard) to get internet without a land line.

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#18

Post by wccrawford » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:38 PM UTC

davidu wrote: post #4

That's it? I'd expect it to be much higher. I wonder what the percentage is in an urban city like San Francisco... 80%?

Yeah, I'm surprised it's that low, too. My entire family dropped land lines when cellphones became cheaper. That's including my parents, sisters, etc. None our homes have land lines. We do have Skype, though. It's just cheaper for international calling. (Especially if the other person has Skype, of course.)

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#19

Post by Bud » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:42 PM UTC

idive wrote: post #8

davidu wrote: post #4

That's it? I'd expect it to be much higher. I wonder what the percentage is in an urban city like San Francisco... 80%?

Perhaps the other half is living with their parents.

If you read the article, one detail is that the statistic is that 51% of those in this age group "live in households" which have only cell service. So in other words, this is including the kids still living at home. Viewed through this lens, the shift towards cell-only is clearly much bigger than the simple 51% number implies.

They should have told us what percentage of those in this age group, who live on their own, have only cell service. But we can make a decent guess.

Re: More than half age 25-29 only have cell phones

#20

Post by electromagnetic » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 6:47 PM UTC

Legion wrote: post #13

davidu wrote: post #4

That's it? I'd expect it to be much higher. I wonder what the percentage is in an urban city like San Francisco... 80%?

I'm not surprised it's not higher, as people of that age bracket are increasingly staying at home and delaying their move out of the parental domicile. I bet if the numbers were 25-29 year olds who had all left home, it would be significantly higher. I bet very few people in that bracket are actually making the decision to activate a landline in their own places. I am 29 for a few blessed more months, and I have been…

I'm 22, for a few more months, and the only reason I got a landline when I moved out is because my cable company offered it to me for ~$4 a month (in total I think it made our bill $10 less a month due to combo savings) and it helped resolve the issue that our buzzer uses the phone network and we couldn't decide who (between me and my wife) should have the buzzer calling their cell.

It also enables me to use a long distance calling card for free, so I can make calls that would cost far in excess of $4 to call my family in the UK.

We do have many friends who are solely cellular homes. It's cheaper for them to pay for low minutes on a smartphone plan than it is to get a land line.