Boulder — Will Kuntzelmann hunches over a homework assignment at the University of Colorado law library, his laptop and cellphone within easy reach.

A business major, the 19-year-old Kuntzelmann uses a wireless connection on his laptop to surf the Internet for information on the genetic modification of food. He breaks to take a cellphone call.

Kuntzelmann, who lives with three roommates and no wire-line phone, could be a poster boy for a wireless generation.

«I don’t know anyone who has a wire line,» he said.

Men and women between the ages of 18 and 24 are driving the trend toward wireless. They make up more than one-third of the people who use cellphones as their primary phones, according to a survey by In-Stat/MDR, which provides research on the wireless industry.

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This tectonic shift in telephone service — by 2008 an estimated one-third of existing phone customers won’t have land lines in their homes — threatens the customer base and future profitability of regional phone companies, especially Denver-based Qwest, which doesn’t have its own wireless division.

In the year ended June 30, Qwest lost more than 900,000 wire lines across its 14-state territory.

A youth movement

Mobility, cheap rates, increasingly trouble-free technology and the ability to keep a telephone number even after switching phone companies have contributed to consumers’ decision to give up wire-line service, said Erin McGee, a spokeswoman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association in Washington, D.C.

University of Colorado law student Zachary Lange, 27, moved from Portland, Ore., to a one-bedroom apartment in Boulder two years ago and never thought of getting a wire-line telephone.

With his $39-per-month cellular plan, he gets services such as voice mail and caller ID that would cost extra on a traditional phone plan, along with free long-distance and free weekend calling.

For young people weaned on video games, Internet chat rooms and text messaging, the wire line can seem as quaint and unnecessary as a record turntable.

Campuses like CU-Boulder are thick with buildings that are wireless «hot spots,» where students can connect their laptops to the Internet without being tethered to a phone line.

At home, Kuntzelmann and his roommates use a wireless router connected to a cable modem to access the Internet on their laptops. With wireless technology, they can work throughout their two-story house, or in the backyard, without restraint.

«This generation is growing up with wireless,» said Phil Weiser, associate professor of law and telecommunications at CU in Boulder.

Universities aren’t the only venues where wireless rules. Coffee shops, airports, hotels and other places are catering to a wireless clientele.

The switch to wireless is expected to morph into a cross-generational phenomenon as the market matures and carriers lower prices and improve service, according to the In-Stat/MDR study. In a growing number of circles, wire-line users are becoming an endangered species.

«It does surprise me that some people have a land line. It is an extra cost that you don’t need,» said Keith Baltus, 31, vice president of strategic development at Spire Media.

With his cellphone and laptop, Baltus is a business road warrior. His phone is stuffed with the numbers he dials most frequently, making it a virtual Rolodex. The laptop is equipped with a wireless modem card that allows him to send and receive e-mail at airports and coffee shops that are equipped with «Wi-Fi» — or wireless-fidelity — technology.

Baltus got rid of his wire-line connection four years ago after buying a new house. «I wasn’t home that much, and I was paying for both (wire line and wireless),» he said.

Qwest at a disadvantage

Qwest lost 921,000 residential-phone lines, an 8.8 percent drop, for the year ended June 30, as customers cut back the number of land lines running into their homes and moved to wireless, cable or competing wire-line phone companies. Qwest also lost 287 business lines during that time.

Other large regional telephone providers such as SBC, BellSouth and Verizon lost wire lines during that period for the same reasons. But those companies have wireless businesses that can recapture customers. Qwest, which acquired Baby Bell US West in 2000, doesn’t have that safety net

US West’s wireless division provided service only within its 14-state region. Qwest decided that a regional presence wasn’t enough to compete in the market and spun off its wireless assets, which were later sold.

Today, the original US West network is part of Verizon’s national system, and Qwest resells Sprint’s service.

One analyst said Qwest’s lack of a wireless division assures that the company will eventually be sold or continue to operate with a stock price far lower than those of its peers.

«It is like the Roach Motel; there is no way out right now,» said Tom Friedberg, a Denver-based telecommunications consultant.

Qwest chief executive Dick Notebaert told The Denver Post in July that such losses won’t deal the company a death blow, but they will force it to change.

«By definition, some percentage of customers are going to opt for a different choice because of portability, mobility, price. So what you have to do is retool to be highly competitive and nimble,» Notebaert said.

To stay competitive, Qwest offers several other services: Internet telephone, long-distance and «naked DSL,» which is a high-speed phone line sold without telephone service.

But Scott Cleland, chief executive of the market-research firm the Precursor Group, said such services are unlikely to make up for the line losses.

When a company loses a land-line customer, it is losing a high-margin asset, Cleland said. Telephone companies rely on large numbers of customers to defray the substantial cost of running their networks. As customers leave, the fixed costs are spread across a smaller customer base and the companies must depend on less profitable services like long-distance, he said.