Historically, the U.S. has lagged behind in adopting new technologies that may supersede more established systems. A great example of this is the laborious growth of cell phone usage in America. When other countries were enjoying robust cellular networks and next generation phones, we were still stuck in the monochrome age. Over recent years, it seems as if cell phones are finally becoming as ubiquitous in America as they are in many European and Asian countries, and you need look no further than our campus for proof.
When I first came to the College four years ago it wasn’t unusual for someone to have a cell phone, but they would often have landline service as well. This was due to several reasons; reception was even worse back then (if you could imagine that), and it was simply useful to be on the College’s network. Over the next few years, more students ended up getting cell phones and forgoing land line service, and the College was forced to rethink their relationship with Verizon, who provided the student land-line service. As of this school year students can still order Verizon wired service directly, but they lose many of the privileges the College’s previous relationship with Verizon provided. Of course, this will end up driving even more students to wireless service.
While the situation is different for the rest of America, you can imagine that there are many factors driving land-line users away from traditional phone service, the primary being the cost of long-distance service. Cell phones aren’t the only option for disgruntled land-line users, there’s also “Voice Over IP” (VOIP) service that utilizes your broadband internet connection and offer long distance and local service at an incredibly low fee. While VOIP service does work on campus, I think cell phones are far more useful for young collegiate-types, so I don’t recommend that route.
So it appears as if the phone method of choice for students is now cellular, and the College is doing its best to offer better support for cellular users. In the next few weeks, you will be able to fill out a survey and help IT get a better idea of what cellular services people on campus are using. I urge anyone who has a cell phone to participate; the results of this survey will determine what phone service the College recommends for incoming students.
If you’re looking to get a cell phone soon, I will personally recommend Cingular. They already have the best reception on campus, early night-minutes, and they offer some excellent low-end plans. They also recently joined forces with AT&T Wireless, which gives Cingular an expansive national network. Compared to the other services available in the area, I recommend them wholeheartedly.
Where will cell phones go from here? With the success of camera phones, we should also be seeing phones that can capture video soon enough. Apple’s recent collaboration with Motorola on their iTunes phone, the ROKR, is also telling of a new trend, music phones. Then there are the more multifunctional devices, like the Treo or Blackberry, that offer phone, PDA, and other capabilities. The biggest problem with any multifunctional device, especially one also ser ving the crucial function of a phone, is battery life.
The Blackberry’s have avoided this problem somewhat because they focus less on media functionality, and more on business applications. The music phones, however, are ultimately useless without advances in battery technology. With most cell phones allowing only a few hours of talk time, you really wouldn’t want to waste any of that by listening to music.
Better battery life will also allow the phones to take on all sorts of new functionality. We can expect cell phone networks to get much faster in the next few years, which will make the way for real-time video conferencing to become a possibility. While they are important now, we may end up finding cell phones even more necessary in the future. Let’s just hope cell phone etiquette becomes more ubiquitous as well.
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