3 On Your Side: Fewer Homes Use Landlines
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Do you have a landline phone? Cell phones are allowing more and more people to give up their landlines at home, and now it appears that businesses are doing the same. 3 On Your Side's Jim Donovan has the details.
When Olga Feynshteyn moved into her first apartment two years ago she needed a lot of things, but a home phone wasn't one of them.
She says, "So it's very cost effective for sure, when I moved out on my own I realized there were so many other bills that I need to put my money towards."
Thanks to cell phones, 47 percent of U.S. households surveyed said they didn't have a landline in 2015. That's up from just 11 percent in 2006.
Young people are leading the way. About two thirds of 25 to 34 year olds don't have a home phone.
Feynshteyn says, "Even if it was free I don't think I have a use for it."
Joseph Marazzo owns a group of wine bars in New York that have no business or reservation lines. His customers can reach out on email.
He says, "I feel like they have a better experience because of it, so ultimately it's a net gain."
Matt Davis from telecommunications analysis firm IDC says the shift away from landlines to mobile phones is here to stay.
According to Davis, "There's about half a million new businesses created every year and those new businesses are much more likely to be mobile-centric."
IDC also found that more than 75 percent of corporations it surveyed plan to implement unified phone systems that extend to workers' mobile phones.