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Average Cell Phone Ownership Rising to Two Per-Person

by Tim Stevens on December 29, 2009 at 02:03 PM

Did you finally get with the times and pick up a cell phone so that you wouldn't feel so behind at social gatherings? If so, welcome to the present, but we hate to tell you that you still have some catching up to do: indications are that, soon, most people will have not one cell phone, but two!

This is according to a survey of 1,000 mobile phone users, which found that the average was 1.8 handsets per person. That figure, already higher than you might expect, is expected to climb over the 2.0 mark as handset prices drop and as more and more businesses provide phones for their employees. Unfortunately, this means that while people shed their landlines and enjoy the freedom of going cell phone only, many of them will then have to feel the burden of carrying around two handsets. [From: textually.org]

Tags: cell phone, CellPhone, handsets, poll, survey

Comments

ArjunDec 29th 2008 5:14PM

Neutral

okay, so maybe i am not so crazy after all for having two cell phones ... scratch that, two blackberrys. One is my personal blackberry, one is given to me by work.

Funny story, i was flying first class to NYC from Chicago, and when we landed, EVERYONE pulled out two phones ... the most popular combination i saw was an iphone and a blackberry 8830WE.

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LimoBarbieDec 30th 2008 1:20AM

Neutral

I used to have THREE cells but I've cut back to two--I need a phone in addition to my iPhone which is great as a portable laptop but sucks as a phone!!

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D VANDec 30th 2008 4:42AM

Neutral

One HTC PRO or MOGUL with an 8g card is reason to not need 2
devices. Tech is going fast. You will be able to receive voice/data from multiple lines on one PDA soon. Have a GREAT new year!!!

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Dave VanDec 30th 2008 4:30AM

Neutral

I wrote this comment over a Spint mobile broadband card, connected to a PC, that has It's own phone number. I have a cell phone with a different number too. Unlimited data transfer is a good thing. 2 lines, one phone.

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James WatsonJan 26th 2009 11:03AM

Neutral

Yeah, that would be in line with current statistics doing the rounds Have a look at the Dept of Labor stats on www.bls.gov/cex/cellphones2007.htm and you'll see that the popularity of landlines are dropping sharply in favor of cellphones. That, coupled with the current economic difficulties means more people go cell phone only in their households.
Also of interest in the same line is the Sullivan report found at
www.newmillenniumresearch.org/archive/Sullivan_Report_032608.pdf which highlights how even lower income citizens are using their (mostly prepaid) cell phones for economic benefit.

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