AT&T has announced that women are catching up with men in cell phone usage, according to an annual poll. After six years of men using significantly more minutes than women on average, the difference this year has narrowed to only five minutes of average talk time.

According to the survey of approximately 1,000 users, men average 458 minutes of monthly wireless phone usage, and women average 453 minutes. The largest historical gaps since the survey's inception in 2001 were in 2002, when men averaged 589 minutes and women talked only 394 minutes, and in 2005, when men averaged 571 minutes and women talked only 424 minutes.

The survey results also indicate that 45 percent of wireless subscribers use the text- messaging features on their device and 44 percent use the camera feature; 17 percent of subscribers play games on their wireless device and 11 percent access wireless email. Women use the gaming, camera and text-messaging features more frequently, and men use their device for wireless e-mail and accessing the Internet more frequently than women.

Overall, both men and women continue to use cell phones more than home phones on average (455 minutes compared with 394 minutes), a trend that began in 2005. Women, on average, spend more time on home phones than men; women talk for 532 minutes compared with only 237 minutes for men. The survey also reveals that women use wireless phones more than men to talk with friends and family, but men use their phones more for business conversations.

The national survey of 1,006 qualified adult wireless user respondents (50 percent men and 50 percent women) was conducted for AT&T by International Communications Research in May 2007. The survey has been conducted since 2001 by using similar methodology and sampling demographics.