Mballar
13 July 2005, 01:15 PM
Texans are cutting the cord
Wireless phone subscribers now outnumber land lines
11:33 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 13, 2005
By TERRY MAXON / The Dallas Morning News
Three years ago, Gloria Shaffner bought her first cellphone. A year later, she gave up her traditional telephone line for good.
The fact that the 39-year-old Dallas accountant no longer has a land line initially shocks many people, she said.
"But why should I pay $40 a month for something that I don't use?" she said Tuesday.
It's a question that a lot of cellphone users are asking these days.
For the first time, wireless subscribers outnumber traditional telephone lines in Texas and nationwide, the Federal Communications Commission says.
"This was the day of reckoning we were all waiting for," Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu analyst Phil Asmundson said.
It's been a steady increase since Southwestern Bell and other providers began offering the first cellular service in Texas nearly 21 years ago. As recently as Dec. 31, 1999, the number of Texas local phone lines still far exceeded wireless, 13.2 million to 5.8 million.
But wireless surpassed wired in the second half of 2004, both in Texas and the U.S. In Texas, wireless users reached 13.1 million, while land lines dropped to 12.1 million. Nationally, wireless jumped ahead to 181.1 million users, compared with 177.9 million land lines.
"Wireless is so popular because it lets people communicate on their terms," said Steve Largent, president and chief executive officer of CTIA-The Wireless Association, the trade group that represents the cellular industry.
More for the money?
"And it's not just about talking anymore. You can browse the Web, take pictures and video, download music, play games or conduct business. Wireless can satisfy a lot of different communication needs and desires, and that's extremely popular to millions of consumers," he said.
Mr. Asmundson can cite his own family as an indication of the richness of today's telecommunications, and the growth of cellphone users compared with land lines. His home has three telephone lines for voice, fax and his office, but the family has six cellphones.
Advances in technology enable land lines to do more with less. While many families may have had two phone lines – one for calls, one for the dialup Internet service – DSL service can put both services on the same line. One phone line can provide multiple voice-mail boxes.
Mr. Asmundson said a bigger factor is that young people now entering the workforce, a group called the "millennials," are very receptive to wireless use.
Next generation
"It's really a group of individuals, the next generation, that has grown entirely in a wireless world. They don't understand and don't really appreciate or value the difference that still exists today in quality between a land line ... and wireless," said Mr. Asmundson, national managing partner of Deloitte's U.S. technology, media and telecommunications industry practice.
Traditional phone lines still offer greater speed, better voice quality and more reliability than wireless phones. But that's becoming less important to young users, he said.
"They are not as fazed as maybe you and I are by a dropped call or some static on the line. That's something they've come to live with and aren't annoyed by," he said.
The question is "not when wireless will become equivalent to wired, but when will wireless be good enough for the average consumer," Mr. Asmundson said. "That inflection point seems to have occurred, particularly in the light of the fact there are more wireless connections than wireline connections. And that gap is going to grow."
John Grantham, 24, gets his voice calls over the Internet or on his cellphone now. He hasn't had a traditional phone since he moved from Florida last year to began law school in Houston.
"People think it's less necessary now," Mr. Grantham said. "Everybody my age has a cellphone, and they use it mainly."
Sandy de Vries, 45, a hand physical therapist at a Dallas hospital, hasn't had a traditional telephone line for about six years. One day, she realized she was paying about $75 to $80 a month for a home phone, the same as she was paying for cellular service. She gave up the land line.
"It's made to me more available to people," she said. "They can get me anywhere. It's also nice that I don't have sales people calling me at night when I get home."
During the same period, her cellular service has gotten cheaper, to about two-thirds of its monthly fees six years ago.
Hanging it up
For users like Mr. Grantham, the decision to go wireless only came when they moved; they never added a home phone. That was also the case for Vikas Ahuja, a 28-year-old management consultant who moved to Dallas last year after he finished graduate business school.
"I just didn't set up a land line," Mr. Ahuja said. "I'm always on the go, and prices have dropped so much for cellphone communications. Nights are free, weekends are free, and during the day you don't talk that much."
His phone uses the GSM standard, which means he can use it in South America, Africa and Europe, an attractive feature since he has family and friends in France and elsewhere in Europe.
And his cellphone does things a regular phone can't. He wakes up to the alarm on his cellphone and checks personal and business e-mail before he gets out of bed.
Many people keep their wire connections to dial up to the Internet. That's the case for lawyer Kamlesan Naidoo, whose home phone has been unplugged most of the time since he and his wife moved into their Kessler Park home a year ago.
Instead, they use their cellphones for all voice calls and the phone line only for Internet service. It took him four to five months just to memorize his home number, and "my wife still doesn't know it," he said.
E-mail tmaxon@dallasnews.com
Wireless phone subscribers now outnumber land lines
11:33 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 13, 2005
By TERRY MAXON / The Dallas Morning News
Three years ago, Gloria Shaffner bought her first cellphone. A year later, she gave up her traditional telephone line for good.
The fact that the 39-year-old Dallas accountant no longer has a land line initially shocks many people, she said.
"But why should I pay $40 a month for something that I don't use?" she said Tuesday.
It's a question that a lot of cellphone users are asking these days.
For the first time, wireless subscribers outnumber traditional telephone lines in Texas and nationwide, the Federal Communications Commission says.
"This was the day of reckoning we were all waiting for," Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu analyst Phil Asmundson said.
It's been a steady increase since Southwestern Bell and other providers began offering the first cellular service in Texas nearly 21 years ago. As recently as Dec. 31, 1999, the number of Texas local phone lines still far exceeded wireless, 13.2 million to 5.8 million.
But wireless surpassed wired in the second half of 2004, both in Texas and the U.S. In Texas, wireless users reached 13.1 million, while land lines dropped to 12.1 million. Nationally, wireless jumped ahead to 181.1 million users, compared with 177.9 million land lines.
"Wireless is so popular because it lets people communicate on their terms," said Steve Largent, president and chief executive officer of CTIA-The Wireless Association, the trade group that represents the cellular industry.
More for the money?
"And it's not just about talking anymore. You can browse the Web, take pictures and video, download music, play games or conduct business. Wireless can satisfy a lot of different communication needs and desires, and that's extremely popular to millions of consumers," he said.
Mr. Asmundson can cite his own family as an indication of the richness of today's telecommunications, and the growth of cellphone users compared with land lines. His home has three telephone lines for voice, fax and his office, but the family has six cellphones.
Advances in technology enable land lines to do more with less. While many families may have had two phone lines – one for calls, one for the dialup Internet service – DSL service can put both services on the same line. One phone line can provide multiple voice-mail boxes.
Mr. Asmundson said a bigger factor is that young people now entering the workforce, a group called the "millennials," are very receptive to wireless use.
Next generation
"It's really a group of individuals, the next generation, that has grown entirely in a wireless world. They don't understand and don't really appreciate or value the difference that still exists today in quality between a land line ... and wireless," said Mr. Asmundson, national managing partner of Deloitte's U.S. technology, media and telecommunications industry practice.
Traditional phone lines still offer greater speed, better voice quality and more reliability than wireless phones. But that's becoming less important to young users, he said.
"They are not as fazed as maybe you and I are by a dropped call or some static on the line. That's something they've come to live with and aren't annoyed by," he said.
The question is "not when wireless will become equivalent to wired, but when will wireless be good enough for the average consumer," Mr. Asmundson said. "That inflection point seems to have occurred, particularly in the light of the fact there are more wireless connections than wireline connections. And that gap is going to grow."
John Grantham, 24, gets his voice calls over the Internet or on his cellphone now. He hasn't had a traditional phone since he moved from Florida last year to began law school in Houston.
"People think it's less necessary now," Mr. Grantham said. "Everybody my age has a cellphone, and they use it mainly."
Sandy de Vries, 45, a hand physical therapist at a Dallas hospital, hasn't had a traditional telephone line for about six years. One day, she realized she was paying about $75 to $80 a month for a home phone, the same as she was paying for cellular service. She gave up the land line.
"It's made to me more available to people," she said. "They can get me anywhere. It's also nice that I don't have sales people calling me at night when I get home."
During the same period, her cellular service has gotten cheaper, to about two-thirds of its monthly fees six years ago.
Hanging it up
For users like Mr. Grantham, the decision to go wireless only came when they moved; they never added a home phone. That was also the case for Vikas Ahuja, a 28-year-old management consultant who moved to Dallas last year after he finished graduate business school.
"I just didn't set up a land line," Mr. Ahuja said. "I'm always on the go, and prices have dropped so much for cellphone communications. Nights are free, weekends are free, and during the day you don't talk that much."
His phone uses the GSM standard, which means he can use it in South America, Africa and Europe, an attractive feature since he has family and friends in France and elsewhere in Europe.
And his cellphone does things a regular phone can't. He wakes up to the alarm on his cellphone and checks personal and business e-mail before he gets out of bed.
Many people keep their wire connections to dial up to the Internet. That's the case for lawyer Kamlesan Naidoo, whose home phone has been unplugged most of the time since he and his wife moved into their Kessler Park home a year ago.
Instead, they use their cellphones for all voice calls and the phone line only for Internet service. It took him four to five months just to memorize his home number, and "my wife still doesn't know it," he said.
E-mail tmaxon@dallasnews.com