More cellphones that landlines

The LA Times reports that there are now more cellphones than landlines. We went from basically zero cellphones about ten years ago. We are at a point now where most households have at least one cellphone.

We still have a few problems with cellphones, though.

• Cellphone service still costs too much. But now that the high growth days are over and the providers can't count on a steady stream of new customers to keep prices propped up, we should see some downward pressure on pricing. Until now, the companies have been increasing minutes as a way of moderating the apparent cost, but this is also a dead end. I call it the "AOL trick," in which the initial free minutes offered in the first month with AOL accounts exceeds the amount the actual number of minutes in a month. In other words, even the most loquacious of us, at some point, needs no more minutes.
• 911 service, after ten years, is still not well-integrated into cellular service. This leads to the headscratching decision by the FCC to demand that VoIP phones get 911 working in a few months. Huh? There are about 40 times more cellphones than VoIP phones, but VoIP providers have to do what cellphone providers can't or won't do?
• Cellular providers still hold customers hostage on phones. You can't pick a phone with the feature set you want, then go to a provider and have them enable it for their service. Instead, you have to take whatever phones they care to offer. Exclusive deals between manufacturers and providers often mean the phone you really want may never be available from your provider. This is a disgrace. We decided in 1984 that it was not a good idea to let the phone company tell you what phone you can use. Why do we still have this with cellphones?