US federal government statistics that show people’s increasing dependence on cell phones for daily communication at the expense of traditional landline phones were released Wednesday.

* 30% of US households either use cell phones exclusively for their daily communication or rarely use their landline for calls.

* In the last half of 2007, 16% of US homes only used cell phones for calls and 13% had landlines in addition to cell phones but used their cells all of the time or nearly all of the time.

* The total number of cell-phone-only houses grew by 2% since the first half of 2007. Highlighting the rapid growth rate in cell phone useage, in early 2004 only 5% of US homes had only cell phones.

* Homes with cell phones who rarely if ever use their landlines grew by 1% during the second half of 2007.

* These households often either have their landline connected exclusively to a PC for internet access or rely so heavily on their cell phones that they ignore landline phone calls since they are more than likely unwanted sales calls.

* Low-income people are more likely than wealthier people to have only cell phones.

* People with only cell phones tend to be living with unrelated roommates, they tend to be renters, and blacks and Hispanics rather than whites.

* Approximately 33% of people under the age 30 have only cell phones.

* People with both cell and landline phone numbers who rarely or never get calls on their landline phones tend to be better educated and higher income individuals.

* Approximately 2% of US homes report having no telephones.

The Interview Survey, involved person-to-person interviews with people in 13,083 households and was conducted from July through December of 2007.

Source: Wired.com