BizJournals Portfolio
Mar 05 2008 12:00am EDT

The Cell Phone Whips Internet, TV, Regular Phones

The cell phone has taken an amazing, historic place in the lives of Americans. A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that for the first time, the cell phone rates as the hardest technology for people to give up, followed by the Net, TV, land-line phones and e-mail, in that order.

There have been few inventions quite like the cell phone, in part because it is so personal. It's the only gadget ever invented that people take with them all the time, like a wallet. It is an extension of you. As former Motorola CEO Ed Zander liked to say, if you're in a room and a land-line phone rings, someone will answer it. If you're in a room and someone else's cell phone rings, you leave it alone.

The Pew study finds that for the first time the majority says they'd rather give up their land-line phones than their wireless phones. This is a choice people are already making -- a trend that will be accelerated by the new $99 unlimited cell phone packages.

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