Withthe Big three automakers and their bailout plea grabbing theheadlines, the news that should have received more notice. If you were thinking that it?sbecause the telecom industry is facing a slowdown or because AT&Tis posting huge losses; then you're mistaken. The jobs beingslashed are the ones in the land line business unit, whereas in othergrowing sectors like cellular service and its broadband internetservice, AT&T has actually been recruiting.

Accordingto an AT&T spokesperson, ?Theeconomic pressures are impacting spending by businesses and consumerson traditional wire line service?. For other service providers likeVerizon and Sprint Nextel, things are not much different, with thecell phone business units doing much better than their land linecounterparts. That speaks volumes about the changing preferences ofconsumers.

Inthe past few years,customers have been switching from their land line services to cellphone services due to mobility, convenience and practicality of thelatter. Also, for a family of two or three with each one having acell phone, the need to have a land line phone is obviated. Add to itthe economic turmoil, which forces people to go into cost cuttingmode; the first to face the axe is the land line phone.

Itmay still be too early to write an epitaph for land lines, but to saythat they are on their way to the grave might not be a stretch. Thefigures here speak for themselves. About 61% of cell phone users inthe US have cancelled their landline service altogether, while 27%have stopped using their landline phones to make calls. The rest ofthose retaining their landline phones use it for fax services, homesecurity and to make emergency calls, according to a .

Thetrend is the strongest among those in the 18-24 age group, where 29%have largely shifted to mobile, while Gen X'ers and baby boomersare showing a slower shift towards cell phones. It's no surprisethat the Gen Y'ers are more comfortable using the cell phone as thegadget has been around as long as they can remember.

Moreover,the cell phone for Gen Y is not just a gadget making phone calls, butalso a mobile entertainment tool to click pictures, send and receiveemails, MMS, ,play ,download and do much more. What's clear is that all technologies have toreinvent themselves to survive and the phone is clearly in undergoingthe metamorphosis that will keep the humble phone in our lives forthe foreseeable future.