8 Times More Cell Phones Than Home Land Lines

8 Times More Cell Phones Than Home Land Lines

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Cell phones in Chile outnumber residential land line phones by eight to one. In this Andean nation, Cell phone usage has had a 12.4% average annual growth over the last five years, but the number of land lines has dropped by 0.4%.

8 Times More Cell Phones than Home Land Lines

Dropping land line service in favor of cell phones is a growing trend. About 25% of American households have ditched the land line telephones in favor of going with only wireless service. Canadians follow that with 12% going wireless. See my blog Land Line Phones Being Dumped for Wireless. In developing countries it appears the technology quest is driving more cell towers to be built than land line wired structures.

5 billion cell phone users worldwide? At the beginning of the year, the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) predicted we would reach 5 billion cell phone subscribers in the world by the end of 2010. At the end of 2009, 4.6 billion people were cell phone subscribers. This is up from 1 billion users in 2002. Even in developing countries the number of cell phone users was up to 50% of the population. (Chile is a prime example of this.)

Cell phone usage in Chile is about equal to their population. As of June this year, there were 17.6 million cell phones in Chile and 2.18 million residential land lines, the Telecommunications Secretariat said. Chile has an estimated population of 17.1 million inhabitants, according to the national statistics institute, INE. Does this amaze you as much as it does me?

The Smartphone is not just for making phone calls. With more and more Smartphones hitting the market, more and more people are using their cell phones for email, internet browsing and texting. From India to Kenya to Colombia to South Africa, cell phones are sweeping the technology race. Many areas are using text messaging to sign up for job searches (especially where Internet isnt readily available to everyone). In India, the cell phone is used in citizen election monitoring, and in equipping voters, via text message, with information on candidates incomes and criminal backgrounds. See my blog Cell Phones are Sweeping the World Technology Race.

Do you still have a land line phone? I gave up my land line phone to become just a cell phone user about 3 years ago. It occurred to me that I was paying for a land line and never using it. At first I had to have a land line for my DSL subscription, but even that has changed these days. With my new Droid X phones capabilities of being a broadband for my laptop, I may soon dump the DSL as well. What about you? Do you use your cell phone to access the internet or email?

About the Author:
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