Landline Survey: The Decline of Calling a 'Place'

A survey out today shows that one in six homes has no traditional landline phone. Among people 25 to 29 years old, one in three lives in a home with no landline. Behind these statistics is a fascinating change in mass thinking: We no longer want to call a place and ask for a person. We want to call a person.

Yes, the survey by the National Center for Health Statistics (which is concerned about 911 calls) seems to reflect decisions by people about how they will make outgoing calls. But choosing to forgo a landline is not really about outgoing calls -- it's about incoming calls. You want people to be able to reach you. Households where every member is less likely to have a cell, like older people and those with small kids, are more likely to keep a landline. In those homes, you need to be able to call a place to reach the right person.

But while that used to be the norm, attitudes are changing. We increasingly want a phone number to be a specific person. You call it, you get that person. As Motorola's ex-CEO Ed Zander like to say, if a cell phone is on a table and rings, you don't pick it up if it's not yours. If a landline is on a table and rings, anyone in the room might pick it up.

It's a subtle but significant change that often goes overlooked. Analysts think we get cell phones and dump landlines because we want to talk on the go -- but that's only part of the truth. Inside a home, a cordless phone is as mobile as a cell phone. There, the driving reason is that phone numbers are becoming personal. Especially among the young, a phone number attached to a place seems kind of ridiculous.

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