More landlines getting heave-ho

Published 12:00 am Monday, January 10, 2011

As the calendar turns over to a new year, more Americans are giving up their landline telephone services and transitioning to only using cellphones, according to a survey published by the U.S. Center for Disease Control.

Released in late December, the survey shows that wireless only households in the southern United States increased by 4 percent, from 25.4 to 29.3, in the last six months, the largest percentage in the nation, according to the CDC.

This is also a 15 percent increase from when the survey was first started in Jan. 2007.

This trend is being seen in New Iberia, where cellphone retailers are noticing that more and more local residents are dumping their landlines and snatching up cellphone accounts.

“A lot of customers port their landline numbers into a cellphone so that they have the same number,” Scott Kyle, manager of Centennial Wireless on South Lewis Street, said. “I think landlines will eventually be not as prevalent as they are today.”

The reasons for the change often vary among consumers.

B. Sue Goodwin of New Iberia said that she gave up her landline two years ago when she realized that it was not being used very often.

“We just didn’t use it that much,” Goodwin said. “I think that a lot of people are going to go that way.”

Another reason for people to dump their landlines in favor of cellphones, said Acadian Verizon worker January Gary, is a matter of economics.

She said she has heard from many customers who said they are trying to downsize their bills by cutting landlines.

“Cellphones are just so much more convenient, especially with a lot of people who travel or move around a lot,” Gary said.

She also said she believes the only segment of society that may continue to hold onto its landlines is the older generations.

Despite multiple attempts for comment over a two-week period, representatives of landline telephone services at Cox Communications and BellSouth were unavailable for comment as of presstime.