The first idea of the cellular phone was concocted in 1947, however it was not until 1983 that cell phone service was first offered to US consumers. (Calem, 1). A Gartner report indicates that at the decade’s end, cell phone owners will make up almost 40 percent of the world’s population. (Charny, 1). The number of services now available on an individual’s cell phone in the year 2007 can be intimidating for a consumer that just wants to make a call from their car. Cell phone companies are now offering everything from text messaging to GPS enabled phones.
Even children are getting in on the fun, using cell phones to text message friends and keep in touch with parents. Perhaps the most exciting thing about cell phones is the technology that continues to advance at a very rapid pace, promising that cell phones are here to stay. Services that are now offered for your cell phone that would have seemed unbelievable even five years ago are making cell phones a very valuable asset to have these days. One of the most popular services among cell phone service providers is internet access from your phone.
This function allows users to check their internet e-mail and even read the latest news, all from a hand held device. Internet powerhouse Google now offers a service wherein users are able to send a text message to 46645 requesting information and receive a text message back with the requested data. Cell phones are also making international calls affordable as opposed to the somewhat high rates that can be charged on international calls made from a landline. By calling 712-858-8883 from your cell phone, you can call any of 50 countries and only pay for the call to the Iowa number. (Pogue, 1).
Another very popular service for your cell phone is being offered not from your cell phone service provider, but from Web sites on the internet. These sites offer a free disposable cell phone number, which acts as a mask for your real cell phone number. This service is so popular because cell phone numbers are more private than home numbers because they are not listed in any directory or phone book. When the mask cell phone number is called, the caller can leave a message, which causes a text message to be covertly sent to your real cell phone, notifying that you have a message to retrieve on your masked cell phone number. Grossman, 1).
Upping the technical abilities of cell phones, some models are now being built with GPS capability. This allows cell phones to use the satellites of the Global Positioning System Network. This technology is still being rolled out to users and means that not only can you be located by someone else via your cell phone; you can use maps on your phone to help reach your destination. Some companies are using this GPS technology and offering a service called a “social mapping service. ” One of these types of services allows you to send out a beacon to friends that contain the coordinates of your location every 20 minutes.
The “social mapping service” is being marketed to younger users, but older users can appreciate the use of a navigation system you can carry with you. (Stross, 1). Cell phones are no longer just for adults or teenagers. Many service providers now offer cell plans and cell phones specifically for children. According to Yankee Group, twenty-five percent of kids 12 years old or younger have a cell phone. (Noguchi, 1). Most of these do not require a contract, but allow parents to pre-pay for minutes or pay as you go. Kajeet, a new company who is targeting only children for phone service, hopes to have 175,000 customers their first year.
Disney has also gotten in the game by offering a phone that makes use of GPS technology that allows parents to keep track of their children’s whereabouts via the cell phone. Most of these companies also offer a way for parents to restrict who can call the phone and when. (Cole, 1-2). Firefly Mobile, who has more than 100,000 customers that are twelve years or younger, offers a small cell phone for the small hands of children with just five large buttons that only allows incoming and outgoing calls, no text messaging. (Noguchi, 2). The future of cell phones is wireless, also called Wi-Fi.
Cell phones in the near future will use the wireless network instead of using the current cell phone network infrastructure. This internet based connection will likely be cheaper for users than making use of the conventional cell phone towers. Some companies, such as EarthLink, are now beginning to build Wi-Fi networks and indicate that they can offer Wi-Fi cell service at a fifth of the cost of regular cell phones that use cell phone towers. Unfortunately, this may be a costly endeavor for cell phone companies that have already spent years and a lot of money building cell phone towers all over the country.
Nonetheless, Wi-Fi is the direction cell phones are moving. Cell phone provider giants Cingular and T-Mobile have recognized the movement and will be rolling out cell phone models that allow customers to switch from cell phone towers to Wi-Fi connections as needed. (Richtel, 1. ) Perhaps one of the most arresting attributes of Wi-Fi cell phones is the improvement in performance. Motorola indicates that with Wi-Fi, the new cell phones will have “three times the data transfer and half the cost”. (Halper, 1).
As cell phones continue to use cutting edge technology, and more and more people own them, it is very feasible that in the future, cell phones may eventually replace our MP3 players, our personal computers and our regular landline phones. Many people find cell phones annoying, but it is clear that they are becoming as necessary as a home phone landline or home computer in our fast paced world, keeping us in touch with friends and family but also providing useful tools that make life easier, if not a little more interesting.
