All that was wired will henceforth be wireless: The Negroponte Switch manifesting in the US


Posted on August 14, 2009  /  2 Comments

All that was wired (telephone) will henceforth be delivered wirelessly. All that came wirelessly (radio and TV) will henceforth be delivered through wires. That was the Negroponte Switch. No longer theory and speculation, it seems:

The decline in landline use, which has been under way for several years, has picked up speed in recent months. In the first half of 2005 only 7.3% of households were mobile-only, according to America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which collects such data because it uses landlines for health surveys. By the end of last year the proportion had reached 20.2%—increasing by 2.7 percentage points in the second half of last year alone, the biggest-ever increase

This is happening in India and Pakistan, the most recent report being of Sri Lanka joining the trend.

Read more in the Economist.

2 Comments


    1. So what exactly is the point? That because driving while texting is dangerous, we should ban mobiles and go back to wireline phones?

      BTW, we have followed the driving distractions story over a long time: http://lirneasia.net/2009/07/do-not-text-and-drive/