The year 2013 marked a significant turning point for phone companies that have handled voice telephone calls for over 100 years. For the first time, the volume of domestic telephone calls and the revenue generated from them was nearly flat. For the last two years, both are now in decline on the wireless side of the business as North Americans increasingly stop talking on the phone and text and message instead.

The U.S. wireline business peaked in the year 2000 with 192 million residential and office landlines. Over the next ten years, close to 80 million of those — 40 percent, would be permanently disconnected, replaced either by cell phones, cable telephone service, or a Voice over IP line. Wireless companies picked up the largest percentage of landline refugees, most never looking back.

Over one-third of more than $500 billion in annual revenue generated by telecom companies in 2013 came from voice services. Although that sounds like a lot, it’s a pittance of a percentage when compared to 2005 when AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless earned most of their revenue from voice calls. Ten years ago, wireless companies principally sold plans based on the number of calling minutes included, and many customers often guessed wrong, paying per minute for calls exceeding their allowance.

At first, this represented a revenue bonanza for the wireless industry, which earned billions selling customers minute-based calling plans that came with built-in cost-controlling deterrents for long-winded talkers — the concern of using up their calling allowance.

Starting in 2008, wireless industry executives noticed something peculiar. While revenue from texting add-on plans was surging, the growth in calling began to level off. Wireless voice usage per subscriber peaked at an average of 769 minutes in 2007 and began falling after that year. By 2011, the average customer was making 615 minutes of calls a month. As customers began downgrading calling plans, wireless carriers shifted their quest for revenue towards text messaging.

For awhile, texting earned wireless companies astounding profits that required little extra investment in their networks. SMS service at most carriers was effectively priced at $1,250 per megabyte, broken up into 160 byte single messages. In 2011, over 2.3 trillion text messages were exchanged. A message that cost a wireless carrier an infinitesimal fraction of a penny to send and receive cost consumers up to 20 cents or more apiece if they lacked an optional texting plan. To further boost revenue, some carriers like Verizon Wireless began to pull back offering customers a variety of tiered texting plans with different messaging allowances, switching instead to a single, more expensive unlimited texting plan. Many customers balked at the $19.95 a month price and began exploring other forms of messaging each other.

The industry’s demand for profit eventually threatened to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. At the same time wireless carriers were raising prices on text messages and forcing customers into expensive texting add-on plans, free third-party messaging apps began eating into texting volume. By 2012, the use of SMS declined for the first time, with 2.19 trillion text messages sent and received, down 4.9 percent from a year earlier.

It took little time for the wireless industry to realize the days of offering plans based on calling minutes and texting were quickly coming to an end. Younger users began the cultural trend of talking less, texting more — but using a growing number of free alternative apps to do so. As a result, both AT&T and Verizon shifted their plans away from focusing on revenue from calling and texting and instead moved to monetize data usage. Today, both carriers offer base plans featuring unlimited voice calling and texting almost as an afterthought. The real money is now made from selling packages of wireless data.

Wi-Fi calling allows customers to make and receive voice calls over a Wi-Fi connection, not a nearby cell tower. The prospect of bundling that option into a cell phone just a few years ago would have been unlikely at some providers, unthinkable at others. It was never considered a high priority at any traditional carrier, although T-Mobile began offering the service all the way back in 2007.

Since most calling plans now bundle unlimited calling, letting calls ride off the traditional cellular network is no longer much of an economic concern.

Some even expect carriers to eventually embrace Wi-Fi calling, declaring it superior to alternatives like Hangouts and Skype, which require an app to handle the call. A Wi-Fi call can be received by anyone with a phone.

This month, the last holdout, Verizon Wireless, capitulated and announced it had won approval from the FCC to introduce Wi-Fi calling to customers, joining Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T. But Verizon plans to initially limit that service, offering an app that must be installed to make and receive Wi-Fi calls. The other three carriers integrate Wi-Fi calling directly into the primary phone call app already on the phone.

The introduction of the service is unlikely to have a significant economic impact on any wireless carrier. Most have ample room on their networks to handle cell call volumes. Whether a call is placed over Wi-Fi or traditional cellular service, it will ultimately end up on the same or a similar IP-based phone switch as it makes its way to the called party.

With little revenue-generating opportunities for voice calling or SMS messaging, companies have nearly stopped the practice of monetizing individual telephone calls, preferring to offer unlimited, all-you-want calling and texting plans that used to cost consumers considerable amounts of money.

Now wireless carriers see fortunes to be made slicing up and packaging gigabytes of wireless data, sold at prices that have little relation to actual cost, just as carriers managed with text messaging for the last 20 years. A Verizon Wireless customer using 12GB of data in October that kept a now-grandfathered unlimited data plan paid just under $30 for that usage. (This month Verizon raised the price of that coveted unlimited plan by $20 a month.) Verizon charges $80 for that same amount of data on its new “XL” data plan. Verizon’s cost to deliver that data to customers is lower than it was five years ago, but customers wouldn’t know it based on their bill. As always with the wireless industry, costs often have no relationship to the price ultimately charged consumers.

One of AT&T’s cell towers in Denison, Tex. went missing last Thursday in the 1900 block of West Crawford St. after vandals cut the tower’s supporting guy wires, causing it to collapse.

Nearby residents woke up to find the remains of the tower crumpled on the ground, with dramatically poorer cell service the result for AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile customers in the immediate vicinity. All three mobile providers maintained antennas on the affected tower.

Denison Police say the incident was a clear case of vandalism. After the guy wires were intentionally cut, the tower lacked sufficient support to stay standing on its own.

Nobody was injured during the collapse, but AT&T says the vandals caused $1 million in damages. A temporary cell tower is now in place. It will take three months to permanently replace the cell tower.

AT&T is offering at least a $7,500 reward for information that leads to an arrest.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KXII Sherman ATT cell tower felled in Denison 11-22-2015.mp4[/flv]

KXII in Sherman, Tex. reports Denison authorities are looking to arrest the vandal(s) that destroyed an AT&T cell tower. (1:30)

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A Boston area boarding school’s failure to accommodate a 12-year-old student’s allergy to Wi-Fi will force the Fay School to hire attorneys to defend itself in a lawsuit brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

All three plaintiffs have been kept anonymous, but their lawsuit clearly identifies what is responsible for their son’s headaches, itchy skin and rashes — the school’s Wi-Fi system.

The Courthouse News Service:

In spring 2013, the Fay School installed an industrial-capacity WiFi network into the school that was accessible in all classrooms. After the new network went live, “G” began coming home with headaches, itchy skin and rashes that would recede in the evening, and vanish over the weekend and during summer vacation when he was not near the school, the lawsuit claims.

When the child returned to school for the 2014 academic year, his symptoms got worse, resulting in him having to regularly leave school early.

The parents found that their child’s condition may have been caused by exposure to increased electromagnetic activity after learning that, right before their child began suffering the symptoms, the school had installed a new, industrial-strength WiFi network.

“Exposure to Wi-Fi emissions at the levels emitted by the type of Wi-Fi to which the children are exposed in Fay classrooms causes, in those persons affected, most notably children, the symptoms of EHS, which include severe headaches, fatigue, stress, sleep disturbances, skin symptoms such as prickling, burning sensations and rashes, muscle aches, nausea, nose bleeds, dizziness and heart palpitations,” the lawsuit states.

The Omega EMF protector comes in Ethernet or Wi-Fi versions. A similar device opened up by an RF engineer was found to contain plastic beads. A reviewer claimed it was also effective at repelling “the lizard people from touching me in the night.”

People claiming to suffer from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome, or EHS, claim wireless signals cause them pain and suffering. Others argue the condition also afflicts those exposed to electric lights, juicers, Keurig coffee makers, garage door openers, washing machines, microwaves, laptops, blenders, air conditioners, cotton candy makers, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, televisions, dishwashers, and fans. Some believe that mountains are effective blockers of radiation and have relocated to the Catskills or West Virginia to escape decent cell phone coverage and high quality broadband.

While medical authorities consider the symptoms reported by sufferers to be credible and believable, most experts strongly doubt electromagnetic activity is the cause. In the 1980s, high tension, high-capacity power lines were usually implicated by sufferers. But as cell phones became common, cell towers became the new targets. The presence of Wi-Fi, especially in public buildings and the classroom, have fueled the fire under a small army of activists dedicated to getting those services shut down, fearing their health impact on children.

To test the science, a 2009 double-blind study conducted by the National Institutes of Health on intolerance to electronic signals quickly found that when test subjects had no knowledge of whether they were being exposed to electromagnetic activity, all the symptoms of hypersensitivity vanished.

The Boston area family sued after claiming school officials had grown hostile over their requests to “test their student’s classroom.” The family also requested the school’s Wi-Fi network be disabled in all classrooms where their child was present and have wired Ethernet Internet access installed instead.

The World Health Organization’s firm conclusion that there is no link between EHS and Wi-Fi signals was not enough to assuage those worried about wireless. The WHO also declared EHS is not a credible medical diagnosis. Now, this does not mean the symptoms of people who think they have EHS are not real. But with no serious evidence wireless signals are the cause, skeptics suggest another environmental cause is more likely responsible for symptoms.

The two best ways to protect your pets from exposure to robust cell phone signals: 1) Become a Sprint customer. 2) Buy this dog collar for $169.

Prior claims of EHS have often turned out to be exposure to mold and mildew, allergies, perfume exposure, poor air quality, or a yet to be diagnosed unrelated disease or medical condition. For reliable defense against mold-related issues and to improve indoor air quality, discover First Defense Insulation services, which offers effective insulation solutions.

But that has not stopped the creation of a cottage industry of companies marketing “EMF protection” devices to a worried public.

Until recently, an Amazon seller peddled the EarthCalm Omega WiFi Electromagnetic EMF Protection dongle (USB or Ethernet version, so evidently the plaintiff’s request to move the school to Ethernet-based Internet access would subject their child to additional pain and suffering.) A “Healthy Home Package” containing this and a “Home EMF Protection System” is priced to move at another seller for just $405.

A curious RF engineer received a similar wall unit years ago as a gag gift – one he could not resist opening.

“There was nothing more [inside] than a 1-inch long piece of masking tape folded over,” he wrote. “When I peeled apart the masking tape there were seven tiny plastic beads, like you would use on a necklace. That was it! That is their ‘circuit’.”

With the EarthCalm Omega out of stock, there are plenty of alternatives available from hundreds of websites that raise the alarm on the dangers of wireless signals and then make a living selling very expensive “protection” devices of questionable value.

The EMF meter is claimed to be useful for detecting EMF and for ghost hunting.

Among them:

• The Nova Resonator S-Series (in three fashion colors) — a metallic tube hung from a chain placed around the neck ($239)
• The Quantum Cell: A metallic decal placed on the back of your cell phone, degrading or eliminating any cell phone reception ($129)
• Aulterra the EMF Neutralizer: No it’s not a person, it’s a cheap cell phone signal degrader for the middle class ($29)
• 4 Paws Pet EMF Protector: You wouldn’t let your dog be subjected to harmful Wi-Fi, would you? This dog collar is the “answer.” ($169)

The marketplace has grown so bloated with EMF protection sellers, they occasionally turn on one another. The manufacturer of the EMF Protection SmartShield360 Portable claims it is state-of-the-art, unlike those pushing “passive (not powered) pendants or stickers which claim to protect you.”

“SmartShield technology is light years beyond basic Schumann Resonance devices,” claims the manufacturer. It’s also light years away from the price of your basic Aulterra kit. SmartShield 360 will set you back $249 (plus $4.99 shipping).

In all seriousness, James “the Amazing” Randi believes such stories of wireless woo-woo can have a real cost.

“We do scientific research for a reason – to find out if things like EHS are real entities,” Randi writes. “What’s the use of such research if the results are going to be ignored.”

“Further, if people who believe they have EHS do not, they likely have some other condition – another condition which will go undiagnosed and untreated because they falsely believe EHS is the cause,” Randi adds.

Randi is also concerned the media treats these stories like catnip, sensationalizing the coverage without any sense of skepticism or fact checking.

“Reporters should have some sense of the topic they are covering, and whether or not they have sufficient background knowledge to know they are telling the true story,” he writes. “If you do a Google search for ‘electromagnetic hypersensitivity’ [one will easily find] Wikipedia, which includes a decent discussion of the lack of scientific legitimacy. [Another] is for a published review showing that EHS sufferers cannot detect EMF. [A] third is to Skeptoid’s debunking of EHS, and [a] fourth is to the WHO review.”

Verizon’s landline coverage map.

Verizon is working on a sale of its cellphone towers and a portion of its landline assets in a series of deals that could fetch the company more than $15 billion, according to a breaking report in the Wall Street Journal.

The company is looking to raise cash to pay down debt incurred when it bought out Vodafone’s 45% share of its wireless unit and to cover $10.4 billion in wireless licenses the company just won in a government auction last week.

The most likely targets in a landline sale are Verizon territories outside of the northeast.

Verizon has already dumped its landline assets in Hawaii (sold to Hawaiian Telcom), northern New England (sold to FairPoint Communications), West Virginia and many smaller city and suburban territories acquired from GTE (all sold to Frontier).

In its 2010 sale to Frontier, Verizon retained assets in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, central Texas and Southern California regions. But now all three states are prime targets for a sale. Likely buyers include Frontier Communications, which already has a major presence in Florida including a national call center, and CenturyLink, which acquired Qwest and has a large service area in the southwest and western United States. Frontier remains the most likely buyer, having aggressively expanded its landline network in legacy AT&T (Connecticut) and Verizon service areas.

Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam has shown little interest in maintaining Verizon’s wired assets or growing FiOS and has been willing to sell off major parts of Verizon’s landline network to continue prioritizing Verizon Wireless. McAdam led Verizon Wireless from 2006-2010, before being named CEO of Verizon Communications.

He foreshadowed the forthcoming landline sale in January when he told an investor conference he was willing to make significant cuts to Verizon’s wired networks.

“There are certain assets on the wireline side that we think would be better off in somebody else’s hands so we can focus our energy in a little bit more narrow geography,” he said at the time.

Verizon is also expected to follow AT&T’s lead in selling off much of its cell tower portfolio. It will lease access to the towers it sells.

Verizon maintains FiOS networks in Texas, California, and Florida, but that is not expected to deter the company from selling its landline assets. Frontier acquired Verizon FiOS properties in the 2010 sale in both the Pacific Northwest and Indiana. Those services operate under the Frontier FiOS banner today.