How Is the Wireless Phone Industry Impacting the Economy?

Productivity Improvement

• One of the ways that cellphones have helped the economy is through improved productivity. Employees are able to make phone calls and conduct business from wherever they are. This has positively impacted many of the industries throughout the economy. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, by 2016, the wireless industry in the United States will contribute more than $427 billion every year in productivity gains. This is a drastic impact on the economy as a whole.
  
  

Creation of Jobs

• The wireless phone industry also tends to have a positive impact on job creation over the long-term. To supply the number of phones and cellphone networks that are needed, many employees will have to be hired. People will be necessary to help create the infrastructure and build the phones. Being able to work in a mobile manner also makes it possible to create new jobs and industries that were not possible before.
  
  

Health Care and Small Business

• According to the CTIA, health care facilities and small businesses are positively impacted by the growth of the cell phone industry. In the health care industry, productivity gains will increase to about $27.2 billion per year, according to CTIA. Small businesses are able to send representatives out into the field with mobile phones and mobile broadband. This enables them to get more work done in a shorter amount of time, which helps small business overhead costs.
  
  

Considerations

• Although the cellphone industry has helped the economy overall, it has hurt a few parts of the economy. For example, with the emergence of cellphones, traditional land line providers are hurting. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one in four households had only cell phones and did not have a land line in 2010. Companies who rely solely on selling landlines and wired Internet may continue to do less business over the long-term. Since customers can access the Internet and make phone calls through their cellphones, fewer people pay for monthly Internet service or a land line phone.