So long, land line phone.
You've been pretty reliable all these years. When other appliances cut out during blackouts, your dial tone purred reassuringly. Heck, you even worked in New York on 9/11.
But it's time to say goodbye. Frankly, you're just . . . dumb.
You can't take a picture. We can't listen to music together or surf the Web. You're useless when it's time to update a Facebook status.
The economy is shaky, the budget is tight, and we don't use you much anymore. It's time to cut the cord.
Millions of consumers have already worked through something like this process and voted with their cell phones, and millions more will soon, sustaining a trend that smart investors can play.
And last month, AT&T (T, news, msgs) made the eventual death of the land line all but official when it asked the Federal Communications Commission for relief from regulations that require it to maintain an analog wired network. The former Ma Bell said in the filing that land line use had dropped 42% from 2000 to 2008.
That's right, land line. Even your mom says you're bad for business.
Going wireless
Sure, there are some die-hards out there:- About 30 million people rely on land lines for DSL Internet access, according to tech research company Gartner.
- Many people want to maintain land lines because their reliability is desirable for use in home security systems.
- Businesses are turning off land lines at a slower pace because companies like the rich feature set they offer. As of September, business use of land lines at AT&T had declined 12.5% from 2006, compared with a 26% decline among residential customers.
- Older people remain steadfastly faithful to their land lines, the CDC says.
But, hey, there were people who held on to analog TV until the day it was turned off.
For the rest of us, especially young people, the land line is already as good as dead. Nearly half of adults 25 to 29 years old live in households with only wireless telephones.
Looking ahead, if the rapid rate of decline continues at 10% to 12% a year, land lines will all but vanish in a decade.
There's money to be made in any trend this large. To figure out the best ways, I recently talked with some of the best mutual fund managers and tech analysts around, all of whom work for mutual funds that have beaten their categories over the past few years. Here's a roundup of their take on how to play this trend.
Continued: Avoid cell phone price wars
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