Cell Phones

The other day I was in the elevator, switching background pics on my cell phone, when an older man – who can obviously remember rotary phones – remarked how we take them for granted these days.  In fact, we can’t live without them, yet they are fairly recent.

 My brother and my secretary both have iPhones, while I still have the Sharp TM150 I bought in 2005 shortly after returning from Rio, where my POS Nokia didn’t work – it was a two-band phone, not a three band phone, and of course in Rio they use the one band this phone couldn’t use.  Anyhow.  At the time it was fancy and snazzy, the most advanced phone T-Mobile sold.  Now?  I have to admit the iPhone is much nicer, but I’d have to actually own one to get used to its unique touch-screen format.  Recall Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) shrugging off somone’s iPhone when trying to reach the alarmingly absent-for-his-own-wedding Mr. Big (Chris Noth) in the “Sex & The City” movie (thanks to Miranda’s ever-so-helpful advice to him at the rehearsal dinner the night before).  For the time being I mess around with my secretary’s phone – much to her annoyance. 

 I can remember rotary phones and black and white TVs.  I first got a cell phone in 1998, some rather large Motorola thing scarcely smaller than the typical cordless phone.  At the time I still had a landline – which I’ve now gotten rid of.  I really think cell phones have made home phones obsolete, assuming you have reliable coverage with your cell; land lines are 99% reliable, so it takes an impressive cell network to beat them.

 History.  0G, 1G, 2G, 3G.  0G starts from the 1940s, with car phones using vacuum tube technology developing in the 1950s.  The 1G era began in Japan in 1981, with Motorola selling the first handheld cell phones in the US in 1983 (above second from left).  These phones were large and bulky – and certainly a novelty at that time.  2G technology dates from 1991, about which time cell phones seemed to appear with any meaningful frequency.  The 90s is when I started seeing them around in any numbers, but far from the frequency you see today.  3G dates from 1999.  

 Nowadays it seems everyone has one.  My mom has one, but she rarely brings it with her or uses it, and still relies on her landline.  My friends Dave and Ken have yet to get them.  In Ken’s case it seems to be anti-Yuppie deal, like his aversion to BMWs - in this respect he’s back in the Reagan ‘80s.

 T-Mobile.  This is my carrier.  I can’t remember why I chose them, most likely because, at the time, they had the nicest phone.  Their coverage in Europe was stunning: I had better reception in Bucharest than at Dulles Airport.  Likewise, equipped with a tri-band phone in Rio, I had no trouble.  Here the coverage stinks around Dulles Airport, in Centreville (where my brother lives), and all but the 5^th floor of the Fairfax County Courthouse.  In a small town in Minas Gerais, Brazil, the only good cell phone reception is at the cemetery, of all places (!!!).  Not quite that bad, but similar issues.

 Sharp TM150.  See above, next to the Motorola dinosaur. T-Mobile no longer supports this phone.  They have their own version of the iPhone, but my impression is that it lacks many of the features of the iPhone.  Mine has a small disc drive that fits a 32 MB minidisk, a camera which takes mediocre pictures and 8 second video clips, and a very high resolution screen (something in the mexapixel range).  The ringtones are fantastic: at a time at which most cell phones had a polyphone tone, this one had real tones: actual words and lyrics (e.g. “Office Space” Bill Lumbergh: “That would be great, m’kay?”).  It’s a flip-open design very similar to the Star Trek communicators – hell, I even downloaded the appropriate ringtone for that, so I can reply, “Kirk here.  Beam me up.”

 Text Messaging.  My Romanian woman-from-hell taught me this.  I’d text her when the cab arrived in her neighborhood, and she’d get in.  So date my TM days from April 2006.  Text messaging is best for small, short, simple messages, especially when you’re in a noisy environment (e.g. a rock concert) where a normal phone call would be impractical.  It’s difficult to text while driving – not recommended! – and not well suited for elaborate discussions or phone sex.  The key is to recognize its strengths and avoid its weaknesses.

 Etiquette.  We’ve all seen idiots, assholes, and bitches yakking on their cell phones:  driving their SUVs into someone’s poor car, interrupting movies, taking calls at inappropriate moments (e.g. in the middle of a date), arguing in public, etc.  At the courthouse, assuming your phone isn’t taken from you at security, you will be warned to turn it off before court, as the judges hate them going off in court and the bailiffs are happy to oblige. The other deal is the earpiece phone, when your viewpoint is the ear WITHOUT the earpiece, so it looks as though the person is an unusually articulate schizophrenic having a conversation with an imaginary friend. 

            Aside from cell phones going off in court, the most egregious breach was when we had the Buddhist monks from Tibet (dark red robes, shaved heads, etc.) blessing our humble office.  This involved ringing bells and chanting in Tibetan for about 30 minutes.  An unidentified Vietnamese male, probably a former client, was sitting in on this, obviously hoping the blessing would include him.  And in the middle, his cell phone kept going off.  Not once.  Not twice.  But at least three times.  Instead of putting it on mute or turning it off, he simply acknowledged that it was from his (apparently difficult and jealous) wife, and let it ring.  And let it ring again when he didn’t pick up the first and second times.  I’m neither Buddhist nor Tibetan, but I at least turned my own cell phone off and respected the ceremony.   When I go to mass at the Cathedral, I leave my cell phone in the car, and to the credit of the Catholics at my church, I have NEVER heard a cell phone go off in mass.  They might sit tight and not get Communion (God knows why…literally) but they won’t take a cell phone call in church.  I have to wonder what a ceremony at a Buddhist temple must be like.