Broadband connections are greater than the number of landlines in Springfield, Illinois

With the advancement of wireless phones and fixed-cost nation-wide calling plans, people have been dropping their landline service.  Many feel that since they have their cell phone with them all the time they can save some money by dropping their home phone line.

Add this to the advances in broadband technology and infrastructure expansion; you get a very interesting phenomenon: the number of broadband connections can exceed the number of landlines.

This has recently happened in Springfield, Illinois.

The State Journal-Register in Springfield broke the news that the number of high speed Internet connections increased to 6.4 million for the past year.  They also reported that the number of landlines decreased to 6.2 million.

The number of wireless users is just 1 million shy of being equal to the combined number of broadband and landline subscribers.  This is definitely due to the advancement of wireless technology and the explosion of devices in the past few years.

A non-profit group, Broadband Illinois, launched a site in February to promote broadband availability and inform the public of the options available and how they can obtain better and higher-speed Internet connections.  With a group such as this we should see the broadband numbers pull even further ahead in Springfield and may even see other cities in Illinois join this trend.