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Almost half of US households have cut the cord for voice service

According to the most recent report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)National Health Interview Survey , more than 47 percent of American homes have only wireless telephones for voice service, an increase of 3.4 percent since 2014. The number of mobile-only homes is even higher among younger people: “More than two-thirds of all adults aged 25-34 and of adults renting their homes were living in wireless-only households” for voice service.


Since many of these “wireless only” households do have landline connections for Internet and video service, these households have not cut the cord entirely. Wired connections still play an important part in our communications landscape.


“Approximately 113 million adults (46.7% of all adults) lived in households with only wireless telephones; nearly 41 million children (55.3% of all children) lived in households with only wireless telephones,” the report read. “The percentage of households that are wireless-only and the percentages of adults and children living in wireless-only households have been steadily increasing. The 3.4-percentage-point increase from the first 6 months of 2014 through the first 6 months of 2015 was statistically significant.”


This chart illustrates the increase in wireless-only households since 2003:


 

Read the rest of the reporthere.

 

Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, January-June 2015 (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dec. 2015)