More homes ditching landlines

WASHINGTON – New results from a biannual survey show that in the first half of 2012, one in three households didn’t have land-line phones.

Nearly 36 percent of households in the U.S. are wireless only, up from 34 percent in the last half of 2011, The National Health Interview Survey, a Centers for Disease Control project, says.

However, while the increase goes along with the trend, the percentage increase is the lowest since 2008, when wireless-only households went from 20.2 percent to 22.7 percent in the first half of 2009.

The survey also indicates that men were more likely than women to only use cell phones at home.

In a show of culture change, more than four in ten children live in homes without a landline phone and what’s more, six in 10 adults age 25-29 live in wireless-only households. However, just under 5 in 10 adults age 18-24 lived in wireless-only households.

On the other end, the survey shows nearly 4 and a half million adults don’t have phone service in their homes at all.

Read the full survey from the CDC here.

WTOP’s Thomas Warren contributed to this report.

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(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

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