From: Randall Parker 

People in countries that have either or both of
    A) low availability of landline phones or
    B) very high cost/poor quality of landline phones
  have a more compelling reason to switch to cellular when it becomes
available.

The United States has for a long time running had, by world standards, widespread and
fairly low cost landline phones. So cellular has taken off here but not as fast as it
would have had the US had lousier landline service.

Another factor is population density. In a place like Montana or South Dakota you
aren't going to find cellular as much because there are just not enough customers to
justify the towers. In the more densely populated northeast like in Europe you are
going to find ubiquitous cellular. Comparisons between the US and Europe frequently
miss the demographic angle. Cellular is just another technology with trade-offs that
do not make it purely better in all cases.

Frankly, I prefer people calling me on landline phones. In hilly areas the signals
end up being poor and I hate having conversations cut out on me. I get this problem
with calls from people from a number of competing providers using different
technologies and I get it from a Canadian friend with his service. I
especially get
it with mobile callers who are simultaneously too distracted to maintain a constant
conversation and who are willing to waste my time while they pause to change lanes.

Plus, I just hate being told "Oh, my battery is going dead. I might
lose you". I get
these calls wanting technical help and the people can't be bothered to be
fully charged. But if they are using a POTS corded phone this never
happens. This is progress? Homey don't think so. This is just plain
annoying.

Some people in the US are dropping their landline service entirely and going with
cellular. I don't welcome this trend.

What I like most about phones: when they do not ring.

Phil Payne wrote:

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3344437.stm
>
> Knee-jerk responders need not reply.  Give it half an hour's thought first.
>

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