In number, cell phones are creeping up on land-line phones. They already comprise about 43 percent of all U.S. phones, according to the International Telecommunication Union, up from 37 percent in 2000.



Meanwhile, the number of U.S. land-line phones has dropped by more than 5 million, or nearly 3 percent, since 2000, the Federal Communications Commission reported in June.



The United States hasn’t been the quickest to adapt. Already, more than half the phones in the world are cellular.



Cell phones overtook land lines earliest in some developing countries that hadn’t laid ground lines by the time cellular technology arrived. In Cambodia, for instance, nearly 90 percent of phones are cellular.

Cell phones started outnumbering traditional phones in European countries in the late 1990s, partly because phone-pricing systems favored wireless, analysts say. Typically, Europeans don’t have unlimited local calls on their home phones — one big advantage of land-line service in America.



Many people overseas also have to wait months and pay hefty deposits for regular service to be installed, making the out-of-the-box utility of cell phones even more appealing.



Early U.S. models were pitched as car phones, which had a more limited appeal. But the nation is catching up.



The United States now has almost one cell phone for every two Americans. It took ground lines nearly 100 years to reach that level of penetration, according to Sheldon Hochheiser, AT&T’s corporate historian.



About half the households recently surveyed by PriMetrica, a San Diego research group, said they would give up their land lines if the wireless price was right.
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