With the ubiquitous smartphone becoming ever more prevalent in people’s lives, is humanity on the verge of doing away with the “groundline” or fixed telephone line altogether, at least as far as private households go? ReportLinker has compiled globe-spanning data to look into the matter.

Our search begins in Australia.

The number of people in the “land down under” who have a smartphone but no fixed telephone line has been increasing steadily and is forecasted to keep on rising through 2021 when it’s estimated that it will be well over 8.5 million. By that time, the number of smartphone owners in Australia is anticipated to be over 20 million, up from over 15 million in 2017. If you think that might be slowing down mobile Internet data volume in Australia, think again. It’s only increasing and is anticipated to keep on doing so. The nation’s number of Internet service subscribers is increasing and expected to keep on rising as well, at least through 2021. The Aussies love texting, too. The number of mobile messages sent per year has been rising since 2015 and is expected to keep on rising through 2021. As makes sense in a relatively “laissez faire” market economy, the average monthly revenue per mobile connection has been going down and is forecasted to keep doing so, as mobile service providers lower their rates to remain competitive. (They increase their total revenues by way of increased volume.)

Similar patterns are seen in China.

There, the average monthly revenue per mobile subscriber is going down. Meanwhile, mobile Internet traffic has been increasing dramatically year to year. With technological advances, output capacity per phone has been increasing, too, and it’s expected that it will keep on rising along with the number of mobile phone subscriptions. If we take the new silk road from China to Germany, once again we find mobile data usage on the rise and forecasted to keep on rising. This rising trend goes for the number of mobile text messages sent, too, showing forth a new paradigm for how people prefer to communicate.

Traveling from Germany to the United Kingdom, we discover that the average monthly household expenditure on mobile smartphone service has been steadily decreasing and is predicted to keep on getting lower even as more people become smartphone owners and users. (Once again, service providers increase their total revenues through increased subscriber volume.) A unique trend in the UK is found in subscribers texting less and less as the years go by, but only because they’re making steadily greater use of chat apps like WhatsApp.

Taking the Chunnel from the UK to France…we find the number of mobile service subscribers has been slowly but steadily rising and is forecasted to keep rising through 2021 (from 72 million in 2016 to 78.6 million). Total text message volume has been rising and is anticipated to keep on doing so, while revenue per capita steadily decreases as service providers compete for greater volume of subscribers (as usual). The patterns all around the globe are quite similar. Mobile smartphone usage is steadily on the rise. Fixed line usage steadily diminishes.

In the United States, smartphone usage is even giving serious competition to Wi-Fi.

Research conducted by ReportLinker in recent years has found revealing numbers about smartphone and mobile data usage in the world’s biggest economy. In March, 2017, published survey results showed that “almost 40% of Americans say they use their smartphone to access the Internet at home.” The Americans seem to be wedded to their smartphones, and not only or even predominantly for making telephone calls or sending texts. Another survey conducted by ReportLinker showed that “nearly half (46%) of Americans say they check their smartphones as soon as they wake up, while they’re still in bed”, and 75% said that there are days when they don’t even turn off their smartphones.

Making use of smartphones for engaging with social media, reading and writing emails, taking and sharing photos, and getting news reports all comes before using them for telephone calls and messaging in American culture.

The smartphone has become the dominant device in private lives of the 21st century. It may be a speculative reach to announce that fixed telephone lines and wi-fi are going to vanish from the private household of the average person. Nevertheless, humanity’s love for “going mobile” is reflected in modern communications technology trends.