Cellular phone expenditures increased rapidly from 2001 through 2006. Coupled with a decrease in spending on residential landline phone services (residential phone services) over the same period, spending on the two types of services were practically equal in 2006. Expenditures for cellular phone services per consumer unit rose from $210 in 2001 to $524 in 2006, an increase of 149%. Expenditures for residential phone services per consumer unit fell from $686 in 2001 to $542 in 2006, a decline of 21%. In 2001, the ratio of spending on residential phone services to spending on cellular phone services was greater than 3 to 1. In 2006, the shares of these two components were almost equal, with residential phone expenditures accounting for 49.9% of total telephone expenditures and cellular phone expenditures constituting 48.2%.
| Consumer spending on wired vs. wireless | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spending | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 |
| Telephone services | $914 | $957 | $956 | $990 | $1,048 | $1,087 |
| Residential telephone | 686 | 641 | 620 | 592 | 570 | 542 |
| Cellular phone service | 210 | 294 | 316 | 378 | 455 | 524 |
| Other services | 19 | 22 | 20 | 20 | 23 | 21 |
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Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics |
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