TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Oklahoma, Utah Lead Cell Phone-Only Trend

ADVERTISEMENT

The Associated Press

Published: March 12, 2009

Trendy California isn't a trendsetter when it comes to relying on cell phones. And while the 1987 movie "Wall Street" helped introduce the then-brick-sized mobile phone to popular culture, New York and other Northeast states lag in dropping landlines. Surprisingly, Oklahoma and Utah lead in going wireless, according to federal estimates released Wednesday.

At least 26 percent of households are now cell-only in Oklahoma and Utah, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated. That rate was at least 20 percent in nine other states - Nebraska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Texas, South Carolina and Tennessee - and the District of Columbia.

In Florida, 16.8 percent of households were without a landline phone.

The study is sure to be watched closely by telecommunications companies trying to understand state and local markets better, and by government, academic and commercial survey researchers using telephone polling to monitor health trends, politics and much more.

The CDC, blending its own 2007 survey data with Census updates, found the prevalence of cell-only households varies widely by state - sometimes within regions and even between neighboring states. This is tied to differences by state in demographics known to predict wireless-only ownership, especially being young and renting rather than owning a home.

States with the fewest cell-only households: Vermont (5 percent) and Connecticut, Delaware and South Dakota (6 percent each). South Dakota was near the bottom even though next-door Nebraska was near the top. Also below 10 percent: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Hawaii, California (9 percent), Montana, Massachusetts and Missouri.

In New York, 11 percent of households were cell only.

The study's lead author, Stephen Blumberg, senior scientist at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, noted the data are from 2007 and all signs indicate people keep substituting cell phones for landlines at a steady pace.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT