A few years ago, as wireless service adoption was in its heyday, predictions started to emerge that people would eventually disconnect their landline services and only rely on their wireless service. And, as it turns out, 6% of U.S. households had gone wireless-only by the end of 2004 (according to Forrester Research).
Today, there is a great article [subscription required] in The Wall Street Journal about how the "cord-cutting" phenomenon is not growing as fast as was expected, however. Christopher Rhoads gives a variety of reasons for the slow growth of wireless-only homes including the constraint of a limited number of wireless minutes, technical limitations of some wireless networks (e.g., annoying echoes, excessive environmental noise, etc.), absence of wireless directories, etc.
To me, until wireless networks offer better coverage, I wouldn't even consider dropping my landline. Though I live in a Boston suburb, I've yet to be able to get better reception than two bars in my living room. I've gone through Sprint and T-Mobile and am now moving on to Verizon in the endless quest of finding decent network coverage.
Hey wireless providers, stop worrying about bringing the "next killer app" to market and focus on getting the real killer app - voice - right. Until my cell phone provides the same level of quality as my landline, I'll be keeping my strings.
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