cell phone world

August, 2, 2006: FCC To Auction Off 90 Mhz Block

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) recently announced that they were auctioning off 90 Mhz of the radio spectrum. The radio spectrum are basically the "airwaves" that control television, radio, wi-fi, and cell phones.

To give you an idea of the size of the spectrum that the FCC is auctioning, take a look at Verizon Wireless. Currently Verizon uses 42 Mhz for its entire network in the United States. Needless to say, 90 Mhz is a lot of radio spectrum.

The auction has brought many of the major players (including the big four wireless carriers - Verizon, Cingular, Sprint/Nextel, and Tmobile. However, there are many smaller fish in the market that are looking to capitalize on smaller, more niche parts of the radio spectrum. Because of fairly limited competition between wireless carriers, the US hasn't exactly seen a dramatic improvement in wireless voice quality, technology, or especially prices, mostly because of a general lack of competition.

Generally, the larger the amount of spectrum that is used, the more competition that results. And of course, competition is great for everyone EXCEPT for the major wireless companies. The big players have been a little slow in rolling out new cell phone technologies such UMA, a technology that allows the cell phone to transfer a call from a GSM tower to a voice-over-IP line, effectively switching from a paid wireless line to a free internet call. It's really not hard to see why. In the future, if all calls are made of free wi-fi networks, why would anyone pay money to the wireless providers?

The radio spectrum auction is expected to bring in 186 companies and individuals looking for a share of the radio pie. Expect many ferocious, savage, and primal bidding wars to occur.

June 10, 2006: Nokia's Study Reveals More About Consumers and 'Digital Convergence'

It's been a hectic month. Hence the lack of any real site updates, articles, or anything else. The good news is I should be back on track and writing more entries/articles.

Nokia recently unveiled the results of a global study that encompassed cell phones, music, and even home applicance connectivity. The results aren't exactly what I'd call surprising, but there are definitely a couple big points here.

The main goal of the survey/study was to see whether consumers preferred "digital convergence," a term describing a union of several devices (mp3 player, camera, scheduler, address book, web browser) into one device (obviously, the cell phone). However, it wasn't exactly a good-faith study considering Nokia's role in pushing digital convergence,

Some of the highlights of the study were:

44% of respondents said they used the camera on their cell phone as their main camera. With phone camera's getting bigger and better (think of the Nokia N90), this is very understandable.
67% of respondents said they expected their cell phones to become their main music player.
48% of respondents wanted to connect their mobile device to their home sound system.

36% of those surveyed said they used their mobile phones to surf the web monthly. Of course, my personal feeling is this figure would be a lot higher (in the USA anyway) if high-speed internet cell phone connections were much cheaper. Right now, mobile web is so expensive that it's almost ridiculous.
36% of users in Japan surf the web daily. Wow.

The study also asked several questions regarding music genre preferences. The most popular answers were:

35% - Pop
21% - Rock
8% - Dance
7% - Classical

There was one last notable section of the survey dealing with home connectivity. Given a way to do so, would the respondents link their home applicances (fridge, dishwasher, stereo system, tv, pc) together? 42% said yes,

I suppose the end result of the study was that people are clamoring for more and more technology, and they'd rather have a device that does everything than multiple devices that do everything better separately.

May 16, 2006: "Cell Phones: A Key Player in Proximity Payment Systems"

It's the technology that we've been waiting ages for. The technology that is practically standard in Korea and Japan - the ability to use vending machines with a compatible cell phone! It's called NFC (near-field communication), and it just might be revolutionizing the way we order (snacks).

Cell phones (especially Nokia cell phones) have had "mobile wallet" functions for several years now. However, they did little more than to store a backup of your credit card numbers and other important information - sort of an information safe.

Unfortunately there's still a small hitch in the technology - what happens if you lose your cell phone? Cell phone manufacturers are currently experimenting with biometric (fingerprinting) technology and voice activation technology. Currently NTT DoCoMo, the company that was responsible for rolling out 3G into the Asian markets, produces and markets a biometric enabled wireless handset. The cell phone can be locked or unlocked simply by placing a finger onto the reader.

Another problem that has slowed down adoption of near-field communication technology is the lack of software standards on cell phones. With numerous software operating systems and user interfaces present on cell phones today - Symbian, Windows CE, propreitary OS's - it isn't easy developing an application that works on all phones.

You'd think that the credit card companies would be all over these technologies but believe it or not - only Discover Financial Services is actively researching cell phone e-wallet technologies. According to this article, "the company is experimenting with contactless payments via cell phone and anticipates having the product in the marketplace by mid-2006." Mid-2006? That isn't too far off.

The potential uses of the NFC technlogy are gigantic, and the stakes are high - could you imagine paying for a train ticket, gasoline, or even food with your cell phone? It just might be the future.

("Cell Phones: A Key Player in Proximity Payment Systems" http://www.amonline.com/publication/article.jsp?pubId=1&id=16096 www.amonline.com 16 May 2006.)

May 7, 2006: "Cell-Phone Shushing Gets Creative"

We've all encountered "those" people. You know, the ones that won't stop jabbering in a voice that's just obscenely loud. And worse, no one seems comfortable telling the offender to just be quiet.

Now there's a solution, courtesy of the "Society for Handheld Hushing (SHHH)," in the form of smartly designed business cards with the messages that everyone WANTS to say.

After all, why even bother getting into a heated argument with an obnoxious cell phone user? Just take one of these cards out from your wallet (carry several just in case!), hand it to the unsuspecting victim, and leave. Rinse and repeat for every offender in the area.

The cards are available at the official SHHH site here. Maybe if more people carried these cards around instead of sitting there thinking some negative thoughts, we'd have a quieter place.

As of early last year, the pdf file of these message cards had been downloaded nearly a quarter of a million times.

My opinion of these cards can be summed up in one word: brilliant.

("Cell Phone Shushing Gets Creative" http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,66310,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2 www.wired.com 7 May 06.)

May 1, 2006: "Your Cell Phone is a Homing Device"

Some time ago, the federal government announced plans that required carriers to implement E911 (enhanced 911) services on their cell phones regardless of company, contract, or anything else. A 911 call on a cell phone would work on any phone at any location (that had network access). Using global positioning system (GPS) chips embedded in cell phones, emergency workers could mount a rescue quickly and easily by tracking the phone's location.

That's one side of the coin. The other is the fact that it is now possible to track a cell phone's position instantly. Using this information, cell phone carriers can provide a series of new features accessible from that area. Also known as "location-based services," they're coming to a cell phone carrier near you.

One problem with embedded GPS chips in cell phones today is that they can't be turned off - when your phone is on, the GPS is on. Of course, if you need emergency assistance you may not be able to switch on the GPS had there been an option to toggle it on or off.

GPS tracking is nothing new. For example, many trucking companies use GPS devices to track where and when drivers stop or take a break while on the job. It's natural for drivers to take breaks while driving, but a New York Times article reported that a Texas company "busted an employee whose vehicles had been spending on-the-job time in the parking lot of a strip club."

And it seems almost a certainty that if a parent could track their child's locations via cell phone GPS, they would.

The question is how far will these "location-based services" go in the future? Knowing exactly where and when your customers spend every waking moment of their life is a powerful weapon for a cell phone carrier. This could possibly be the beginning of a huge industry - an industry based on locational analysis and how to sell or market a company's products better by knowing your customers better.

It's a scary thought.

("Your cellphone is a homing device" http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2003/feature_koerner_julaug03.msp www.legalaffairs.org 1 May 2006.)

April 27, 2006: "Poll: Cell Phones Annoying But Useful"

It turns out the minorities are more likely to use their cell phones for other functions such as text messaging, taking pictures, and browse the internet, than just making calls, a AP/Aol/Pew poll discovered. In addition, text messaging was much more prevalent among cell phone users in the 18-29 age group across all races.

How much do people value their cell phones? According to the poll, two-thirds of people surveyed would miss their cell phones if they didn't have them, and three-fourths of people said that cell phones have helped in an emergency. One quarter of survey participants said that they couldn't imagine life without their cell phone.

Cell phones are one of the most potentially useful tools on the planet. Being able to be reached anywhere, any time, is a huge advantage in our wireless world today.

However, cell phones have produced a lot of noise pollution, "instant gratification," and that irritating guy on the bus who keeps jabbering on the phone. People now generally tend to talk louder, drive more recklessly, and expect to get in touch with others at a moment's notice. And, still, no one knows for sure what the long-term effects of carrying around and using a cell phone are.

April 24, 2006: If you could add or change a cell phone feature...

If you could add or change a cell phone feature, what would it be? That was the subject of a recent study by CNN surveying numerous users in several 15 different countries. The results are a little predictable and a little surprising:

14 of the 15 countries surveyed chose "2 days of battery life with active use" as the top feature to add or change - and it's fairly easy to see why. With mobile phones improving features at a drastic rate (compare the high-tech camera phones of today with standard 1.3 and 2 megapixel cameras with cell phones five years ago that barely had color), it's been difficult for batteries to keep up as there haven't been any gigantic recent developments in the battery industry. In addition, many people tend to avoid using the more battery intensive features of their cell phones because of the short battery life as it is. Talk times of 3-5 hours are generally the norm with a typical battery, and that's not enough.

The lone country that didn't choose battery life as the most important feature to add or change was China. Instead, the survey respondents cited "20 gigabytes of memory" as the biggest feature.

After battery life, many participants in the study chose a "high resolution camera and video recorder" as the next key feature. However, this is almost a certainty in the near future as camera phones continue to improve at a rapid rate.

In Brazil, people who took the survey named "Video conference calling" as the next key feature, more so than the other 14 countries included.

The survey also asked users how often they used their camera features on their phones - 59 percent of people taking the survey said that they use the camera at least once a week. A quarter of study participants in France, Korea, and the United Kingdom used the camera function daily.

It seems that consumer demand will continue for feature-rich cell phones, with big name manufacturers battling to release the latest high-tech phone.

("Battery Life Concerns Users" http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/ptech/09/22/phone.study/index.html www.cnn.com 24 April 2006.)

April 21, 2006: Cell Phones and Text Messages: A (Financially) Deadly Combination

What's the difference between the USA and the Phillippines? Believe it or not, the Phillippines manages to rank #1 as the highest SMS (text messaging) usage nation. And it's not hard to see why: Text messages in the island nation cost 1 Phillipine Peso - which is equivalent to about 2 cents in US Dollars. Meanwhile, in the US it costs about 10 cents. While it may not seem like a large difference in price - sending 100 messages containing only the word "Hi" would set you back $10. A form of AOL Instant Messenger lets you send IMs (instant messages) through SMS - and a typical conversation can take up a minimum of 15-20 messages exchanged.

Another reason for the extreme price difference between the two countries is demand and price difference compared to making voice calls. In Southeast Asia, text messaging is part of the daily routine - mostly because actual cell phone calls cost far more. Contrast that with cell phone service costs in the US - with providers offering free mobile-to-mobile "in network" calling for free, 5000 night and weekend minutes, and other bells and whistles. That doesn't mean, however, that cell phone providers aren't making money. Quite the opposite.

One thing that has to be noted is the costs of text messaging. According to wikipedia, "more than 350 of these messages per minute can be transmitted at the same datarate as a usual voice call (9 kbit/s)." Cell phone providers are making a killing with this service - especially with the popularity of more recent shows such as "American Idol" and "Deal or No Deal" using text messaging for voting or contests.

I have to admit - I'm a big fan of text messaging even though I barely use the service. However, I have that love-hate relationship as the cost - for me, 10 cents to receive/send a message - doesn't justify the gain. After all, I can just make a phone call, which is included in my plan minutes anyway.

It's too bad, really - if more people using cell phones on buses and other public places simply switched to text messaging, the world would be a quieter place.

Note: This article doesn't really address the social aspects of text messaging - that will be a later post.

("Short message service" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service www.wikipedia.org 21 April 2006.)

Cell Phone World: An Introduction

Welcome to my site! This web page is geared towards those who are interested in cell phones. More specifically: the past, present, and future issues of cell phones. However, focus is placed mainly on health/medical issues and the sociological impact.

Because we live in a world now dominated by mobile phones, every day peoples' lives are being changed by these devices: whether it's a cell phone call that saves a life or the apparent rudeness of a mobile phone user, cell phones are affecting today's society. The sociological impact section of the site attempts to illustrate several of these impacts. Many of the widely controversial health related effects of cell phones are still being debated. There are, however, a few medical issues that could either pose risks to users or have been cleared as a threat. These are based on concrete studies and such listed on this site.

This site was created with the home modem user in mind; it has been designed to be simple yet useful. Pictures have been kept to a minimum. Navigation has been simplified to allow easy access to information. Links to the main sub-pages are all located under the cell phone world logo; links to articles within sub-pages are located on the left sidebar.