Oklahoma, Utah lead going cell-only

Trendy California isn't a trendsetter when it comes to relying on cell phones. Utah, however, is.

While the 1987 movie "Wall Street" helped introduce the then-brick-sized mobile phone to popular culture, New York and other Northeast states lag in dropping land lines.

Surprisingly, Oklahoma and Utah lead in going wireless, according to federal estimates released Wednesday.

At least 26 percent of households are now cell-only in those two states, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated. That rate was at least 20 percent in nine other states — Nebraska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Texas, South Carolina and Tennessee — and the District of Columbia.

Many families across the country have been dumping their monthly bills to the local phone company and increasing their family cell phone plans.

For Harry and Jen Kambouris of Sandy, it took a couple of months and a little courage to make the transition away from their land-line phone, but a little more than a month after making the switch, the results have been extremely positive.

"We had too many telemarketers, salespeople, or car warranty people calling and the rest of the calls were for our kids," Jen Kambouris said. "We started realizing that my husband and I were never even answering the phone because if it was something important they were calling our cell phones already."

So the Kambouris family, who had recently purchased a cell phone for their son Kristopher, 13, decided they would try to make the transition. They purchased a cell phone for their 9-year-old daughter Katie and began the trial run to see if their kids would be responsible enough to take care of the phones.

In the meantime, they unplugged their answering machine and started informing schools, doctors' offices, the cable company and several other businesses that they could no longer be reached on their home phone line.

"It has gone really well so far," Harry Kambouris said. "As long as everyone keeps their phones charged and with them we have not seen many drawbacks at all."

The final step was e-mailing family and friends to make sure they knew all of the four phone numbers. That quickly, the switch was complete.

Now the Kambourises enjoy their time around the dinner table without being interrupted by persistent sales calls and, quite frankly, they wish they had done it sooner.

"We had thought about doing it for awhile and I don't know why I was so attached to it," Jen said.