This week’s cellphone outage makes it clear: In the United States, landlines are languishing

By DEEPTI HAJELA
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — When some people’s cellphone service went down for a while because of an AT&T network outage, among the alternatives suggested were using landlines. But according to the most recent estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics, about 73% of American adults in 2022 lived in households where there were only wireless phones. Landlines have practically reached the status of urban legend among many age groups in today’s America. Among most age groups, the large majority were wireless-only, except for those 65 and older, the only group where less than half were estimated to only use cellphones.