Cell phones win!

My first cell phone was a super fat Motorola. The battery was two inches thick and lasted about 3 hours, if I wasn't talking on it. It's reception was next to nothing unless I stood under a cell phone tower.

I think my plan included 60 minutes of talk time a month, after which it cost about $2.00/minute to make calls. I was in 8th grade when I started carrying the beast. At the time it was very exciting since many of my classmates didn't have cell phones yet. Now, finding an 8th grader without a family share plan is a challenge.

Oh how things have changed. Yesterday Media Mark Research reported that there are more Americans that only have a cell phone than Americans that only have a land line. 14 percent of US households have one or more cellphones, but no landlines, 12.3 percent (almost exactly the percentage of the US population age 65+) only have landlines and no cell phones.

86.2 percent of households now have cell phones, whereas 84.5 percent have landlines. No matter how useful and attainable cell phones become, there is a portion of the population that will probably never adopt them.

Score one for wireless.

NYT