LEWISTON – While the number of wireless phone subscribers continues its climb in Maine to 519,000 in January, the number of land-based phones is dropping.

Cell phone subscribers in the state now exceed the number of Verizon telephone lines running into Maine homes, according to spokesman Peter Reilly.

“Prior to the late ’90s, all we saw for decades was positive line access growth,” Reilly said. “It’s safe to say traditional telephony is on the decline.”

Cell phone use in Maine is increasing rapidly even though it is one of the least-covered states for cell phone use. Only Alaska, Vermont and North and South Dakota had less mobile phone coverage, according to a Federal Communications Commission checkup at the end of 2002.

All those cell phones have changed the way people communicate, said Leonard Shedletsky, a communications professor at the University of Southern Maine.

Shedletsky sees people talking on cell phones as they walk across campus, sit in the school cafeteria and in the hallways between classes.

The cell phone is reshaping the idea of public and private boundaries, Shedletsky said. He has co-written a textbook, “Human Communication on the Internet,” and believes the two technologies will continue to converge.

People already get sport scores, stock quotes and e-mail on their phones over the Internet. Americans are using their mobile phones on average more than 450 minutes a month, according to the FCC.

Shedletsky said when he sees someone talking on the phone in the grocery store, “I just wonder what did we do before the cell.”

While cell phone use is up, pay phone use is down.

Between March 1998 and last December, nearly half the pay phones in Maine were disconnected, according to a new report by the Maine Public Utilities Commission. That’s a drop from 8,200 pay phones to just 4,500.

Officials say people simply aren’t using pay phones as much. They attribute the declining use to the widespread use of cell phones.

Verizon has pulled about one-third of its pay phones from Maine since 2001, Reilly said. Still, he added, Verizon remains committed to pay phone services.

“We believe that there are always going to be customers that rely on pay phones for a number of reasons,” he said.

Phil Lindley of the Public Utilities Commission said a phone survey he is finishing would recommend that Maine not follow states such as New Hampshire and enter the pay phone market.

States can require pay phones at specific spots, but then they’ve got to pay the bill – $75 a month for a Verizon phone. New Hampshire legislators have proposed paying for new public service pay phones there by collecting abandoned deposits paid by consumers at the start of regular land-line service.

Lindley said he opened the comment period for his report last year and hasn’t heard any compelling stories about crimes or peril because someone couldn’t reach a pay phone in Maine.