A recent article in the New York Times was trying to link the decline of landlines in homes as a result of a slowing economy. While it may be true that tighter home budgets pushed folks to trim the fat on things they don’t need, it is more to do with new technologies getting better. Cell phones are super popular choices for the main home phone with unlimited plans & shared minutes. Also skype and other VOIP services create a huge competitor to the old school home phones. I recently downgraded my alltel phone service to $40 from about $80. I only use it for the internet & I can still receive calls on the phone but it costs 10 cents a minute to call out. This has worked well but I wanted to reduce my cell bill also so I trimmed it down a bit also. But I have a daughter who shares minutes with me so I have to make sure I don’t go over on minutes. So last week I signed up for skype out which is only $2.95 per month! I can call any cell line or landline in the USA or Canada and I can get a wireless skype phone so I am not anchored to the laptop. I have not even checked into getting a skype number so people can call in to me. Why? First I can still use my home line & cell for that. More importantly without a number to call I don’t get bothered at home with people I do not want contacting me!