Survey: More than 40% of U.S. households are now wireless-only

Americans continue to ditch their landline service in favor of wireless, according to a new survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the rate of which U.S. households are eliminating landline service has slowed down from recent years, the data shows.

According to CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, in the second half of 2013, 41 percent of U.S. households relied solely on a wireless phone. That figure is up from 38.2 percent in the second half of 2012, 34 percent in the second half of 2011 and 29.7 percent in the second half of 2010.

However, the rate of landline loss is slowing. As the Pew Research Center notes, the share of wireless-only households increased just 2.8 percentage points from the same period in 2012. In 2010, the share of wireless-only households grew by 5.2 percentage points; 4.3 percentage points in 2011; and 4.2 percentage points in 2012.

The wireless-only households surveyed in the second half of 2013 included 93 million adults and nearly 35 million children, according to the survey.

More people are expected join the wireless-only segment of the population. The CDC study found that 16.1 percent of U.S. households described themselves as being "wireless-mostly." That designation means that even though the household has a landline phone, "all or almost all" of their calls are received on a wireless phone.

Young adults are the most likely to be living without a landline. Nearly two-thirds (65.7 percent) of 25- to 29-year-olds, 59.7 percent of 30- to 34-year-olds, and 53 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds live in wireless-only households, according to the CDC. However, as Pew points out, those percentages have not really budged, and in some cases are even below, those recorded in the first half of 2013.

For more:
- see this Pew Research Center post
- see this LA Times article
- see this The Hill article

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