Can you imagine not having local phone service? A growing number of Canadians are going without. Instead, 4.8% of Canadian households are wireless-only compared with 2.7% a year-earlier. So, who are these people? They're students who leave home for school; young people who are out and about; new immigrants who have never had home phone service; and, surprisingly, lower-income people, who given the choice, don't mind paying more for the convenience of a mobile phone. Of course, this trend is bad news for carriers who lost more than 500,000 lines last year and saw sales tumble by more $300-million. The cablecos, on the other hand, can only be happy see that people can live without a local phone but aren't willing to give up their cable service. From a bigger picture perspective, you wonder if the cord-cutting trend sends a message to CRTC that it was premature in not taking wireless users into account while making its recent decision to not deregulate the $10-billion local service market.