Cellular Telephones Rapidly Replacing Landlines and Public Telephones

It's hard to believe that in 1995, only 13% of Americans had a mobile or cellular telephone. The percentage of households that used only a wireless telephone can't even be measured, since nationwide, only about 34 million people even had cellular telephones, according to the CTIA (Cellular Telephone Industry Association). As of December of 2007, 84% of the population has a cellular telephone, almost 16% of the population only uses cell phones and eliminated their landlines, and cellular telephone subscribers number about 255 million, all facts tabulated by the CTIA.

For many people, cellular telephones are an enormous convenience. No matter where you are in the country, assuming you can get a signal, people can reach you on your "home" number. Even the enormous cost of roaming, once up around $1.50 to $2.00 a minute when you left your home territory, has largely been eliminated with nationwide calling plans offered by most cellular phone service providers. It's almost impossible to go anywhere in public and not see someone else talking on a cell phone.

Although many people talk on their cell phones when they're driving, more and more states are passing laws against using them while you're driving. Indeed, the Governor's Highway Safety Association has identified five states, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Washington as states that have passed laws against using your cell phone while driving. The District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands also have laws against driving and talking. With the exception of the state of Washington, if you are spotted driving by the police in states where the law prohibits driving and talking, you can be pulled over and ticketed without the need for you to have committed any other offense, such as speeding. Legislation is being considered in other states as this article is being written, so it pays to keep up on the laws being passed in your state if you talk on the phone a lot while driving.

It used to be that the objections to going completely cellular, such as not having access to Emergency 9-1-1 service, no longer apply. The number of towers has expanded rapidly, making it almost impossible to go anywhere and not get service. In the larger cities, it is impossible to distinguish the quality of a phone call on a landline from that of a cellular phone.

If you travel extensively, it may be an absolute necessity to have a cellular telephone. Public telephones are rapidly disappearing from the landscape. As an example, AT & T pledged to get completely out of the public telephone business by the end of 2008. Everywhere you look, public telephones or pay telephones are being pulled out. Many of the ones that are left may require a calling card to use, since there's no way to bill your cellular telephone service provider for a call from a pay phone. It's interesting to note that while cellular telephones have been cited as the reason why public telephones are being removed in the United States, you can still find plenty of public telephones in Japan. Japan is reported to have more cellular telephone use per person than the U.S., but public telephones are still used extensively there.

While cellular telephones are a great convenience, one has to wonder, in this age of constantly monitoring terrorist activity, if it wasn't the telecommunications industry's intention all along, to move the population from landlines to cellular telephones. Anyone who has seen the movie, Enemy of the State, may recall that line from Gene Hackman, where he said that with the use of cellular telephones, "the government can just snatch calls right out of the air." Indeed, we saw a demonstration in the movie where Hackman entered the ESN number of someone else's cell phone into his and listened in on the private phone call of a congressman. A joke was once made that "if cell phones had been around in 1972, the Watergate burglars could have just given cell phones as Christmas presents to the Democrats and spared themselves the trouble of breaking in." So cellular telephones can be a wonderful convenience, but just remember that with the satellite tracking devices that are being installed in them ostensibly for emergency purposes, and the ease with which a phone call can be overheard through the air, are they really all that convenient? If AT & T got out of the public phone business, are other companies going to get out of the landline business? Or will businesses be the only ones using landlines? It will be interesting to see how events unfold.