More Americans are ditching landlines

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ATLANTA, Aug. 15 (UPI) -- Traditional landline telephones seem to be going the way of the telegraph in America, analysts say.

The phones are being unplugged for good in favor of cell phones at a rate of 700,000 a month, and one in four households now relies solely on cell phones, statistics show.

At the current rate, the traditional plug-in telephone will disappear from American homes by 2025, The Economist reports.

In 2005, only 7.3 percent of households relied only on cell phones, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which collects the data because it uses landlines for health surveys. By the end of 2008, more than 20 percent of households used only cell phones.

The trend carries far-reaching implication for polling firms, businesses, telemarketers and emergency responders, who rely on call-tracing software that works on landlines, but not on cells.