The convenience of cell phones and the rising cost of landlines has UNM students following the national trend of people using cell phones as primary sources of telecommunication.
Megan Gallegos, a UNM freshman, said having a cell phone is convenient and that it is pointless to pay more for a landline when she can take her cell phone everywhere she goes.
She also said that it was good for emergencies and that long distance on a landline phone can get expensive.
According to numbers from Qwest, New Mexico's only landline phone service provider, more than 3,000 fewer landline phones were ordered for the UNM campus in 2002 than the year before.
The total number of landlines at the University fell from 45,226 to 41,775.
Paul Sanchez, owner of University Wireless in Albuquerque, said cell phones are becoming increasingly convenient because of additional options they come with, including voice mail and text messaging.
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Sanchez said the reasonable long distance rates that come with cell phone packages are what makes them so appealing, especially to college students.
An estimated 7.5 million Americans have made the choice to drop landlines from their budget as many UNM students have.
UNM senior Onastine Nunez said she got rid of her landline because she and her roommate have cell phones and find it unnecessary to have a landline as well.
"Even when I had my own line I'd use my cell phone," Nunez said.
According to Qwest's Web site, the pho ne service provider recently raised their price for standard phone service by $1.25 per month or $15 a year. A basic phone service now costs $13.50 per month, but with various federal, city and state taxes and the addition of amenities such as caller ID and the average monthly phone bill from Qwest can easily reach $39.
Across the country, many Americans now use a wireless phone as their only means of communication.
For Qwest, it means a drop of 23,000 residential customers in the past two years. The Denver-based phone company reported that it had lost $91 million in the second quarter of the 2003 fiscal year.
In a recent news release, Qwest reported a 1.4 percent decline in customers amid competition from other phone service providers and wireless phones.
Camille Johnson, a sophomore, said that she and her family all recently replaced their home phone with cell phones and that the move not only saved them money but it increased their ability to communicate.
"It is pretty much the only way that we communicate with each other," Johnson said. "If I need to call my mother, I can call their cell phone."
