Cell Phone Etiquette
In the eighties when cell phones arrived, they were at first, just status symbols for thrusting entrepreneurs. The Gordon Gecko, ‘greed is good’ generation. Now, they have become common through all levels of society. I wonder where the etiquette for using them originated. Somewhere along the way, what is consider polite behaviour seems to have changed.
It seems to me now that the cell phone is king. If you are in a face to face conversation and your phone rings, you must answer it immediately. There is no need to apologize to the person you are with. Whoever is on the end of the phone must be more important. And having taken the call, there are two ways to go.
One is to totally ignore your flesh and blood companion until you have finished the call. The second, possibly worse, is to try to include them in the conversation with strange mimes and facial contortions to convey what is going on. When the call is over, you don’t tell them who it was or what it was about. They might not even know the caller. It’s as if this performance makes it OK to have blanked them in the first place.
The opposite applies too. In the past, if you went to talk to someone and saw that they were on the phone, you would wait until they had finished or come back later. But the cell phone generation seems to think that it is OK to walk up and just start talking. The availability of instant, always on communication means that nobody wants to wait anymore.
One example of this is driving. Although, in the UK, it is now illegal to use a handset while driving, it is still a very common sight. It has been proven to be a major distraction and a cause of accidents. What gives these people the right to put the lives of others in danger? It’s not as if the calls are important most of the time.
There doesn’t seem to be any filtering process anymore. One cell phone company even used this in their advertising. The message was, if you think it, text it. Whatever little thought passes through your head, put it out there. You bought a hot dog. Let everybody know! Communication is a good thing, but is this communication?
Don’t Dump Your Old Cell Phone, Cash in on It
Selling your cellular phone
The popularity of cell phones is showing no signs of cooling off. The manufacturers are rushing to get their latest models onto the market on an almost weekly basis. More and more neat technology is being packed into them. If one company comes up with a winning new feature, the others have to beat it. If your phone has a camera, we will add an MP3 player. If your phone can play music, ours will play video.
There are a lot people feeling that they need to keep up with these trends. Their current cell phone is only a few months old and pretty high spec, but suddenly it seems obsolete. There is a sleek new design with a higher resolution camera, it can store more music and you can browse the internet with it. You’ve got to have it, but what about your old phone. Will it join your collection in a drawer somewhere or end up in a landfill site. How about recouping some of the cost of your new phone?
Not everybody wants to or can afford to keep up the cutting edge of technology. There is a ready market of people who would think that the cell phone you are keen to get rid of is a very desirable item. And you don’t even have to go to the trouble of finding them. There is always the old standby of Ebay, but there are also companies online that do nothing but buy and sell second hand cellular phones. If yours is relatively new and in good condition, they might offer a pretty good price.
You will need to make sure that all outstanding bills have been paid with your service provider and that you are free and clear to sell the phone. If you bought from a reputable source, there should be no chance that the phone has previously been reported lost or stolen. That could land you in hot water. Assuming that everything is in order, you could soon have a nice little sum to go towards your new, bleeding edge cell phone.
Getting Your Cellular Unlocked
Getting your cellular phone unlocked is not illegal! There is some confusion around regarding terminology that the cell phone providers do nothing to clear up. There is a difference between unlocking and unblocking.
If your cell phone is lost or stolen, you can ring your service provider and they will block it. This means that if someone else gets their hands on it, they will not be able to make any calls. This is for your protection and designed to make a cell phone a less desirable item to steal. To ‘Unblock’ a phone is definitely illegal.
Unlocking is a different matter. When you buy a phone, whether on contract or prepaid, that already has a SIM card, it is set up to work on a particular network. If later, you still like your phone but a better deal is available, you could buy a new SIM card to put in it. The problem is, the phone may be locked to the original network.
Unlike unblocking, getting your cellular ‘Unlocked’ to work on any network is perfectly legal. The phone companies don’t advertise it but if you own your phone, you have a right to look for the best deal and take it with you.
There are three ways you can do this. You can call your existing provider and ask them about unlocking. They may do this for free or they may make a charge. They are allowed to do that. If you think that their charge is excessive, you can try independent companies that provide this service. There are plenty of the on the internet and you can probably find one that is cheaper.
But the cheapest way to unlock your cellular is to do it yourself. When you put in a new SIM card, there is usually a message that the phone is locked and a request for an unlocking code. So, all you need is the code. Once again, the internet is your first port of call.
Go to Google and try searching for something like, ‘cell phone unlock codes’. It will bring up a list of sites offering this service. Some of them will unlock your phone remotely and others will find the code for you, both at a price. What you want is a site that lists the codes for you to enter yourself. All you need to do is search for your model, get the code and you are good to go.
You won’t find codes for every phone, especially some of the latest models but you can always fall back on the other methods. Older Nokia models are particularly easy to find and unlock but most models can be cracked with a little bit of research.
History of the Cellular Phone
The cellular phone has come a long way since the days when you would see a businessman trying to look hip and cool while talking into something, the size and weight of a cinder block. It was as convenient as carrying a phone booth around with you and ridiculously expensive. The cellular phone network of the time was not that extensive and the service unreliable.
I certainly wouldn’t have predicted that by now there would be more mobile phones than people in some countries. They have made the transition from luxury item for techno geeks to something that you wouldn’t leave the house without. Despite protests, cell phone masts have sprung up everywhere and we have come to expect to be able to keep in touch almost wherever we are.
In the past, you might have been grateful to get a signal and be able to talk, but very much more is expected these days. You don’t just text; you take a picture or a video and send a multimedia message. You can carry your music with you and have your favorite track as your ringtone. Want to check your email? No problem.
It used to be said that a modern car has more computing power than the Apollo spacecraft that went to the moon. Now you can hold in your hand, power that they couldn’t have dreamy of. You can have a Windows operating system and office applications and even mobile broadband on your cell phone. A far cry from it’s origins.
The history of the cellular phone can be traced to the year 1908 when a US patent was issued in the name of Nathan B. Stubblefield for what he termed as a ‘cave radio’ telephone. In the year 1947, the first cells that would later be used in cellular phones were invented by an engineer working at Bell Labs.
Other instances of the use of radio-phones have been known with an invention by Reginald Fessenden having been used throughout the Second World War. However, the hand-held cellular phone only came to be used in the year 1973. Since then, given the low costs involved, the cellular phone has been rapidly deployed and mobile phone networks too have mushroomed. In fact, the cellular phone today is much more popular than the conventional landline phones that for long were the main devices used for voice communication.
Despite the fact that just about everybody has a cellular phone, or more than one, companies that manufacture them continue to flourish, bringing out a constant stream of new models. Today, Nokia of Finland is producing the most handsets, with an estimated market share of 40% for 2008. They will need to stay on their toes though, as the race to innovate grows ever hotter.