Cellphone-only Households Keep Climbing

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 17.5 percent of households in the United States have no traditional telephone and rely on wireless services only, which is up from 13.6 percent a year earlier. The percentage of households with a landline and a wireless phone declined slightly in the first half of 2008, at about 58.5 percent, compared with 58.9 percent a year earlier. About 2.5 percent of U.S. households had no phone at all in the first half of the year, compared with about 1.9 percent in 2007, according to the agency. The CDC concludes that telephone polls are being skewed because they have in the past only called those with traditional landlines.