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More Americans Ditch Landlines for Cell Phones

December 22 2009

More than one in five American households (22.7%) have dropped landlines in favor of using cell phones, according to results from the most recent National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).

Almost a quarter of Americans rely on cell phones at homeThe survey, commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but always widely cited as a measure of the CPO trend, involved interviews with members of 12,447 households conducted from January to June. These households included 23,632 adults (18+) and more than 8,818 children under the age of 18.

In the US, the number of cell-phone-only (CPO) households has risen by 2.5% from the last six months of 2008 through the first six months of 2009.

Approximately 21.1% of all adults (c.48 million adults) and 21.3% of all children (nearly 16 million children) now live in households with only wireless telephones.

In addition, one in seven (14.7%) American homes that has a landline, received all or almost all of their calls on wireless phones.

Hispanic adults (28.2%) are more likely than non-Hispanic white adults (19.7%) or non-Hispanic black adults (21.3%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.

Additionally, working adults (19.5%) and adults at college (21.1%) were more likely to be living in a mostly-wireless household than those who are retired or unemployed (9.0%).

Ratings giant Arbitron began CPO sampling in April, to enable measurement of people who cannot be reached by landline, and yesterday announced it is to speed up its planned increase in diary market CPO household sample, raising it to an average of 15% of total sample across all its diary markets in the US, including Hawaii and Alaska, by Spring 2010.

Web site: www.cdc.gov .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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