Tag Archives: cell phones

Posted on

More Adults are Now Texting

According to a new report from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 72% of American adult cell phone users now send and receive text messages, up from 65% last September.

Teens continue to text more than adults with 50 messages a day “on average,” in contrast to the “typical 10 text messages sent and received by adults” every day, Pew said. The non-profit organization compared the results of its May survey of 2,252 adults with a survey it did previously on the cell phone habits of teens ages 12 to 17.

According to Pew, reasons for the increase include reaching “a point where enough other people are texting that (adults) are drawn into using it because they can finally use it to communicate with a substantial number of their friends and family.” Also, “it may be that folks have been pushed by pricing into unlimited texting plans, which has the effect of encouraging people with those plans to text more, because they no longer think of the cost, and then text more people more often.”

Some of that texting is done from behind the wheel. In a recent study, Adults and Cell Phone Distractions, Pew said that 27% of adults say they have texted while driving. The same proportion of driving-age teens (26%) also admit to doing so.

Posted on

Get Better Cell Phone Service

Even the best cell phone service providers often can’t deliver a consistent signal everywhere. It seems everyone has experienced a time when a network’s signal sometimes simply isn’t strong enough to support voice calls or data services. There are new products becoming available that address the problem.

These cell signal-boosting products fall into one of two categories: femtocells or signal repeaters. Femtocells act as miniature cell phone towers that connect to a home network router and use your wired broadband connection to move voice calls and data services to and from your carrier’s network. Femtocells don’t rely on the carrier’s cell towers at all. Most of these products are sold by the carriers themselves.

Repeaters and boosters, on the other hand, amplify and rebroadcast cell tower signals. Since they don’t require carrier support, they tend to be manufactured and sold by third parties.

While repeaters have been around for several years, femtocells are relatively new. Of the four major U.S. carriers, two—Sprint and Verizon—have been selling femtocells (under the brand names Airave and Network Extender, respectively) for the past year or so. AT&T, which has been conducting trials in several areas, recently announced that it will begin widespread commercial deployment of its 3G MicroCell femtocell this month.

Sprint charges $100 for its Airave hardware plus a $5 a month for service. It also offers a couple of optional unlimited calling plans, ranging from $10 to $20 per month, for calls made via the Airave service—options that might appeal to people who are considering dropping landline voice services. Verizon Wireless charges $250 for its Network Extender, but it imposes no monthly service fee. AT&T sells the MicroCell for $150, also with no mandatory service fee.

Posted on

Google Mistrials

In a case of modern technology meets the traditional courtroom, a small but increasing number of jury trials are being declared mistrials as a result of jurors doing research on Google and using their mobile phones to send text messages and to Twitter.

An article by John Schwartz in the New York Times published March 17, 2009, details some of the problems arising because of jurors’ use of modern technology. In one example, the judge in a federal drug trial in Florida was forced to declare a mistrial because nine of the 12 jurors admitted they had done research about the case on the Internet.

This trend is not going away. People are becoming more comfortable with posting comments about their daily activities on Facebook, a blog, or in a Twitter post. This is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to control. Just another little example of how transparency is affecting all areas of life.

Posted on

Text Messaging Most Important for Cell Phone Buyers

Cell phones aren’t just used for talking anymore. In a survey conducted by Amplitude Research, buyers of new cell phones look at video capability (33%), music (34%), Internet access (61%), e-mail capabilities (63%), camera (67%), and text messaging (73%) as the most important features. For driving in the car, 62% said they would use Bluetooth, while 51% would use the hands-free microphones.

Forty-one percent said they send or check e-mails one to five times per day, while 28% said they do not use their cell phones for e-mail. Thirty percent said they use their cell phones for banking transactions. As these trends continue, agencies will want to learn how to communicate with their clients in multiple ways.

Posted on

Make Cell Calls on Airplanes

Israeli company Aerophone Ltd. has developed a communication system that enables telephone calls to be made from airplanes—independent of GSM/CDMA ground stations. The system supports all wavebands and requires neither prior written registration of the passengers nor a particular billing system. Calls cost $1.60 per minute and are invoiced via the normal mobile telephone bill.

The development has been made possible by the installation of so-called picocells (miniature GSM stations) in airplanes, as well as by servers and transceivers that link to telecommunication satellites and receiving stations for the Ku band (Kurtz-under band: a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies). The picocells in the immediate vicinity of passengers automatically reduce the energy output of logged-in mobile telephones to a minimum so they don’t have negative effects on the aircraft electronic systems.

Installation and operation of the Aerophone system is free of charge for the airlines. While I applaud the continued development of technology, as a frequent flyer, I am not thrilled with the idea of listening to phone conversations while trapped on a plane.