America’s abandonment of the landline phone in favor of the cellphone is accelerating, but nowhere has it gone further than in Arkansas and Mississippi. Connecticut, New Jersey and Rhode Island are among the states where the smallest proportion of people depend solely on wireless phones and no landlines, The Associated Press reports.
About 35 percent of adults in Arkansas and Mississippi have cellphones and lack traditional wired telephones, according to estimates released Wednesday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In New Jersey and Rhode Island, that figure is only 13 percent.
Connecticut is 17 percent.
“The answer’s obvious. No one has money here,” said John N. Daigle, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Mississippi who has had broad experience in the telecommunications industry. “If they can do without a landline, they’ll do it to save money.”
That matches the conclusion of Stephen Blumberg, a senior CDC scientist and an author of the survey. Over the years, Blumberg has found that lower-income people are likelier than the better off to only have a cellphone. Younger people and renters are also among the quickest to shed traditional landlines and use only wireless phones.
“They’re not a young state and they’re a wealthy state, and that’s keeping New Jersey at the bottom of the list” of states whose residents rely exclusively on cellphones, Blumberg said.
The latest state-by-state figures, which cover the 12 months through June 2010, are significant. They may mean that changes are needed in how some public opinion polls are conducted, Blumberg said.
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