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Opening Arguments

Unwired yet?

We all knew landlines were on the way out, but it looks like their demise might come even quicker than we realized:

 

USA TODAY) - First it was street-corner phone booths and home delivery of telephone books. Now, land lines are on their way to becoming part of American telecommunications history.

As consumers continue to move to wireless, states are passing or considering laws to end the requirement that phone companies provide everyone land-line service.

Indiana and Wisconsin are the two most recent states to end the requirement, and many others - including Alabama, Kentucky and Ohio - are considering it.

Bill sponsors and phone companies including AT&T say deregulating land-line phone service will increase competition and allow carriers to invest in better technology rather than expand a dying service. Some consumer organizations fear the change will hurt affordable service, especially in rural areas.

According to the story, 32 percent of U.S. households are already wireless only, up from 10.5 percent in 2006. I hadn't realized the number was so high. I've been considering joining that group for at least the last two years, but something keeps holding me back. Having your house wired into the world has seemed like an absolute necessity for so long that giving up the landline seems a little like walking around naked and unprotected. It's the same feeling I have about money, I suppose. Even after I became comfortable with the debit card and realized it could be used for anything, I still felt naked and unprepared if I didn't have a certain amount of cash on me.

Hasn't the transformation of our lives by wireless technology been astonishing? With all the other sweeping changes we've lived through, I think that one gets overlooked sometimes. What a fundamental shift it has been to have our phones associated with people instead of locations and to never have to be out of touch or out of reach.

Comments

ced
Tue, 04/17/2012 - 9:21am

As usual, I'm out of step with Leo and those who feel likewise. I never carry cash anymore, but, on the other hand, don't have a cell phone -smart or dumb- and have no plans to get one unless absolutely forced to. Very little of my life has been "transformed' by wireless technogy, and I hope to keep it that way. Speaking as a card-carrying Luddite, I know plenty of people  whose lives have been thus transformed who are still "out of touch".

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