Survey: One in Six U.S. Homes Cell-Only
May 14, 2008 | by Geoff Duncan
Preliminary results from the CDC's National Health Interview Survey finds that about one in six U.S. homes have ditched their landlines.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have released preliminary results from the National Health Interview Survey taken from July through December 2007. The survey is primarily intended to confidentially gather health-related information from the non-institutionalized U.S. civilian population as a data source to guide public health and policy decision-making. Over the years, the survey has asked participants whether they can be re-contacted, and beginning in 2003 the survey began including questions about whether a family's telephone number was a traditional landline.
Preliminary results from the July-December 2007 survey indicate that almost one in six (15.8 percent) of American homes were relying solely on mobile phones for their telephone service. Additionally, more than one in eight U.S. homes (13.1 percent) received almost all their calls on a mobile phone even if they had a landline.
The new figures represent a 2 percent growth in the number of mobile-only homes since the first half of 2007. The survey also found that roughly one third of respondents under 30 years of age only use cell phones, and that low-income respondents were more likely to be cell-only than more affluent participants. Further, respondents who only use cell phones are more likely to be living with unrelated roommates, be renters rather than home owners, and are more likely to be Hispanic or African American than white. The survey also found that homes with both landlines and mobile phones tend to have completed higher levels of education.
The findings could have an impact on survey and telephone polling organizations, who historically call only landline numbers when conducting phone surveys. The growing mobile-only segment of the U.S. population—and significant demographic trends within it—will likely force national polling organizations to rethink their sampling methodologies.
The survey also found that about two percent of U.S. households have no telephone at all.
Post Your Comment...Comments
Chuck Paugh on May 14th, 2008 at 12:12 PM:
I enjoyed reading your article describing how more and more Americans
are relying on cell phone only service over wired landlines for
telephone service.
I fall into this boat too, and I've encountered one problem: some
financial companies refuse to conduct business with you when you only
have a cell phone.
I first learned this four years ago living in El Paso, Texas at Fort
Bliss Army Base where 90% of those living in post did not have
landlines, and I have found it to be true just two weeks ago as well
now living in Portland, Oregon.
Several banks will not open an account with you if your phone service
is cell phone based only. They claim that it is a "federal law" when
in fact it is only their in-house policy. The nation's largest retail
credit card issuer, GE Financial, that underwrites several hundred
retail store branded credit cards refuses to even process a credit
card application when their computers detect that the number being
entered in their system is a cell phone based number -- thereby
refusing to grant a credit card to a person with cell phone only
service. PayPal will not permit you to confirm a cell phone as a home
number for account verification purposes.
I've complained about this discrimination for years to my Congressmen,
but I have been told that it is not a "pressing issue" for them. It
would be nice to have someone in the national news media research this
type of discrimination, that as your article touched on, now affects
30% of the American population.
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Matt on May 14th, 2008 at 10:24 AM:
Not too surprising of a find here. I still have a landline and pay about $50.00 a month for it (even thought it's bundled with Verizon Fios) though I never use it, and it rarely rings. If there was a cheap way to keep that number and have it go to my cell phone, I would be happy to pay a nominal fee for that service.