I don’t have a landline telephone. In fact, I haven’t had one since 2001. It just seemed redundant in the world of mobile phone ubiquity. And I’m not alone, as a recent study by the US Government shows that fully three out of ten American homes don’t have landlines, relying only upon cellphones for communications.

This number will, of course, go up, but I don’t think landlines will go away completely. I’ve tried to get my parents to abandon theirs, but they like having a “shared number” for the family, and I guess I understand that, though I’d use a service like Grand Central to ring to all the phones. But I’m weird like that.