Cellular Gains As Sole Home Phone

By Joseph Palenchar On May 5 2008 - 6:00am

Cellphones are gaining on analog landline and VoIP phones as the only phones in the house, a Harris Interactive survey found. The poll also found that the age of adults using only a cellular phone is creeping up.

In a series of online surveys of 9,132 adults from October 2007 to January 2008, Harris found that 14 percent of adults ages 18 and older use only a cellphone as their home phone, up from the year-ago survey's 11 percent. The number of adults using only a VoIP phone at home fell to 0.5 percent from 2 percent, and the number of residences using only a traditional landline phone fell to 9 percent from 18 percent as cellular penetration of the adult population hit 89 percent, up from the year-ago 77 percent.

The percentage of households lacking an analog landline phone but using both a cellular phone and a VoIP phone as home phones rose to 6 percent from 5 percent.

Harris also found that people who use a cellphone as their only phone tend to be younger than the general population, but their age is going up "as older individuals become somewhat more comfortable with using a cellphone as their only type of telephone service," Harris said. A total of 49 percent of adults who use only a cellphone as their home phone are between the ages of 18 and 29, down from 55 percent of all adults in the year-ago survey.

People aged 18 to 29, however, are becoming more likely to use their cellphone as their only phone, Harris stressed. In fact, the percentage of 18- to 29-year-olds dependent only on cellular service grew to 32 percent of the demographic, from the year-ago 26 percent.

In other key findings:

• 70 percent of adults have an analog landline phone, down from the year-ago 81 percent;

• 9 percent of adults use only a landline phone, down from the year-ago 18 percent; and

• 15 percent of adults have VoIP home phones, down from the year-ago 16 percent.

The survey also found that, compared to the general population, cellphone-only users are:

• less likely to be age 40 and older. Only 29 percent of cell-only users are 40 and older compared to 60 percent of the general population.

• more likely to have some college education. Sixty percent of cell-only users have some college education compared to 53 percent of the general population.

• more likely to have household incomes of less than $15,000. Sixteen percent of cell-only users are in that income bracket compared to 9 percent of the general population.

• and yet less likely to have household incomes of $75,000 or more. Twenty-eight percent of cell-only users are in the income bracket compared to 37 percent of the general population.

Nonetheless, adults with household incomes of $75,000 and higher accounted for a greater share of cell-only users than last year, rising to 28 percent, from 22 percent in the year-ago survey.

Harris also found that 22 percent of the adults using only a cellphone as their home phone were ages 30 to 39, and another 13 percent of adults using only a cellphone were ages 40 to 49, Harris found.