The cellular phone is probably the most ubiquitous electronic device on the face of the Earth at this time. Computers of all kinds only number somewhere less then 1.5 billion worldwide. However, the cellular phone in its several versions, from the most basic to the most sophisticated and powerful smart phones, number approximately 5 billion. That is an amazing number and basically equates to five out of every seven people in the world have a cellular phone. As of 2008 it is estimated that there were only 1.27 billion landline subscribers and that number appears to be declining as the wireless phone services continue to expand.
More and more people are canceling their landline service and maintaining only a cellular service. Many families have family plans providing a cellular phone to each member and often extended family members. The hangers on consist mainly of folks who have a phone installed in their homes and simply don’t want to let go of it “just in case.” Or they keep it because, like a very small percentage of people who refuse to renounce vinyl LP record albums, they believe it’s better. The other major wired phone user is the enterprise (business) market. However, more and more of these business users are moving to VOIP (Voice over IP – or Internet data) services. So, even businesses are moving away from using the old fashioned, “Ma Bell” copper wired services in favor of digital Internet services. Some folks are using bundled wired services provided by their cable companies, but in reality, these are basically digital services multiplexed on the cable companies’ digital video cable and then eventually dumped into the copper network downstream.
Here’s the fact, despite your and my complaints about dropped calls, cellular “holes” where there is no signal and infrequent times when the system is so overloaded that you can’t get a connection through, the digital cellular phone service is pretty amazing. Most of us don’t pay for long distance calls any longer. A growing percentage of us can receive and answer our email, text message, send and receive photos and video materials, program in a destination and have our phone guide us there through the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) service, be located if we have an accident and so many more things that it boggles the imagination.
So, I don’t feel at all shy about suggesting that if you are a professional nomad (like me), a gypsy, a part-time or full-time RVer or just an occasional traveler, if you don’t have a cell phone you should get one. Of course, there are as many kinds of cellular phones as Carter has liver pills (for those of you old enough to remember Carter’s Little Liver Pills). And, along with the plethora of different phones, there are an amazing array of features from the most simple basic phones to the most powerful smart phones such as the Motorola Atrix 4G (my latest phone) that is actually a handheld computer and can be docked to a full-size computer monitor, keyboard and mouse and do most of the work of a desktop, laptop or netbook computer.
Along with the myriad of phones and features available there is a wide variety of services and plans for your phone. And, most cell phones, except, perhaps, the most basic, can travel with you around the world and by simply purchasing a local service and SIM card in Europe or other parts of the world, you have local service and can stay connected with home and business back home. And, I’m sure if you’re reading this blog, that you’re sophisticated enough about technology to have heard the new word ‘app,’ which is short for application. This word is popping up in the latest versions of dictionaries since it has become so widely used. An app or application is a computer program written to operate on the operating systems of cellular smart phones. From my research of various tech journals, it’s estimated that there are currently more then 450,000 apps available for iPhones, Android, Blackberry and other smart phone operating systems. If you can think of a category there are probably numerous applications in existence to cover every facet of that category. A large percentage of the apps are free to download and use on your smart phone. But it’s estimated that by 2013 the app market will generate $4.3 billion in revenue. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
Here’s the bottom line. If you travel . . . or even if you don’t . . . you should have a cell phone in all but a few isolated instances. The topic of cell phones is far too diverse and large to discuss in one post, so I won’t try. I believe it is such a valuable lifestyle instrument that to attempt to cover everything in one posting would be mind bending both for me to compose and for you to read and comprehend. So, I’ll cover it in segments interspersed with other technology that a savvy traveler should not only be aware of, but be well versed in.
Years ago, probably the late 1980’s, I had a friend, Stuart Crump. Stuart was a techy guy, but he was also a journalist/publisher. He published a magazine on personal communications covering pagers (a nearly extinct technology), business radio and the early phases of cellular phones. Cellular phones during that period were either permanently installed in a car as a mobile phone or they were in canvas or leather bags and called “bag” phones and could be moved from vehicle to vehicle. The totally portable, handheld phones we have today were just beginning to become available. They were large, much heavier, had very few features, short battery life and they were very pricey for the time.
Stuart kept encouraging me to get a cell phone, but I held out until 1992. At that time I had a girlfriend who traveled all the time for her job and I was traveling nationally for the conference recording business that I was involved in. We both decided to invest in cell phones so we could keep track of one another. Wow! It really helped keep our relationship working. I was also a single parent during those years and one day my teenage son had a medical emergency. He was at home in Winchester, VA and stayed home from school that one day due to feeling pretty ill. I was aware of this, but I had appointments in the Washington, DC area – 80+ miles away. While I was still about 75 miles away, I received an emergency phone call from his grandmother. To keep a long story short, having that cell phone in my car with me (it was a handheld mobile phone) and receiving that cell phone call saved my son’s life that day. I had him in the hospital within a couple hours and he went into emergency surgery for a ruptured spleen. I have never been without a cell phone or a national cell phone plan since that time and I never will be.
In future installments I’ll discuss the kinds of phones, the features, the variety of services, data usage and plans, apps and how to have your cell phone create the longest “leash” and more freedom then you’ve ever realized in your life.
Enthusiastically,
Ed
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