Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission.Learn more.

Report shows that poor indoor cellphone reception keeps landlines alive

July 12, 2025

Arecent Harris Pollfinds that one-in-five people are still dealing with significant cellphone reception issues in their homes and therefore keep a landline. This follows aprevious pollwhich showed that one-in-three are forced to take steps to “boost” their indoor cellphone reception at their primary residence.

The recent poll, commissioned by a cellular signal boosting tech company called zBoost, surveyed 2,024 adults last month and found that 18 percent of those surveyed kept their landline strictly because they have issues with their cellphones at their primary residence.

AngryCellPhoneReception

The previous poll from August of 2014 showed that while 97 percent of mobile phone owners make cellphone calls indoors, thirty-two percent said they have been forced to take “steps to boost indoor cell reception.” Some of those steps included heading outside, standing still like a statue and running for the closest window.

At the moment, AT&T and other telecom companies, aregoing state-to-statetrying to convince regulators that it is in the public’s best interest that consumer regulations are gutted so that the telecom companies can stop servicing landlines.

CableIndustryCapitalExpenditures

As Karl Bode notes:

Of course, this situation only helps the telecom companies who then won’t be forced to upgrade landlines and get to push those consumers to the significantly more expensive and data capped LTE wireless service.

Or a company can do what AT&T does and give the impression that if they are allowed to ignore landlines, they just may install fiber-optic services. Nevermind that AT&T and others continue tofreeze significant capital expenditurestowards non-wireless services such as U-Verse deployments.

Thank you for being part of our community. Read ourComment Policybefore posting.