Floridians Continue To Ditch Home Phones
MIAMI (CBSMiami/NSF) — Despite your phone company tempting you with bundle pricing, if you are like most Floridians, you are ditching home phone service.
Floridians are continuing to turn off traditional home phone lines as they rely on wireless phones and voice services from Internet providers, according to a new report by the Florida Public Service Commission.
The report, which is sent to state leaders annually, shows that traditional residential lines declined 16 percent between Dec. 31, 2010, and Dec. 31, 2011, for what are known as "incumbent" phone companies such as AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink. During the same period, business lines for those carriers increased 8 percent. The report also says about 17.6 million wireless handsets were in service as of June 2011, or nearly one for every Floridian.
Overall, the report said 93 percent of Florida households had telephone service as of July 2011, slightly lower than the national rate of 96 percent.
The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.
