The category says "General Advice on cellphones". Cellphones are so omnipresent and hence so generally used that I think that this category is too vague to ring a bell. I’ll still write something to fill the space, and hope that some of the readers manage to stay awake by the end of it.
Cellphones invaded India in the mid 90s(I was asleep on the actual timing) and have captured the nation well enough and are already started building a government of their own to control the future of the nation. I guess this is the story of the world, except for the realative timing. Alexender the great must be turning in his grave, as he did everything humanly possible to rule the world, but could not match the power of mobile communications and what the technology has achieved in less than 2 decades.
The Past - The Invasion: The earliest cell phones that we saw were larger and heavier models, but the idea of them being mobile throughout the city was too good to resist. The older cellphones(bricks as some would call) have had a history of hurting people’s feet whenever they fell. The calling rates were as high as the Quatab Minar and even incoming calls were charged. Things improved with time and as TRAI loosened some ropes. The rates kept coming closer to the ground and the number of subscribers kept multiplying as a swarm of mosquitoes in breeding season, thus providing players like Airtel, Hutch, Essar etc growth. Roaming was still a luxury but incoming calls, once free, made things better. Corporates must have borne some brunt, as employees started using the local landlines to make calls to the mobiles of their loved ones, more often.
The Present - The Conquest: Mobile phones are not just phones! Let me see if I can enumerate what all they can be, here goes - a still camera, a video camera, a FM radio, an MP3 player, a torch(don’t look surprised), a net browser, a chat window, and maybe a full fledged computer. Every Tom, Dick and Harry has one. The neighbourhood cobbler to the vegitable vendor to the "kabadi wala", all have it. Waat’s more, one can be clicked and forever be etched at the wrong side of history using a mobile camera. You can listen to your favorite songs / music while on the move. You can irrititate others’ with Himesh Reshamiya’s songs, whenever you want some privacy, so thay they run away. Roaming facility has become a hygine factor now, so you’re not spared whether you are in a forest or on top of a mountain or travelling in a train. Yes, if you choose not to switch of you mobile while in an airborne flight, you have the power to bring the entire aircraft down, as your cellphone will do enough to interfere with ATC signals.
The Future - The rule: This is an area still open to imagination, but some of the thoughts make me shudder. TV viewing could be a common affair on cell phones in near future. The sales of contact lenses / eye glass may go up commensurately. Office timings could be used more unproductively by watching India struggle against Bangladesh / Kenya in a cricket match over the miniature screen. SMS and MMS may be passe and SVS(Streaming Video service) may take over. Ringtones will get even more irritating and Himesh Reshamiya would only be singing for ringtones by then as his voice would remind us of the old monophonic ringtones. Hopefully your phone would get smarter and automatically avoid calls that you generally do not want to take. But beware, it may also get smarter to make calls that you really don’t want to make(!).
Further down the line, we may simply have mobile communication device permanently implanted inside us. Hence it would do away with cell phones thefts for ever. It would maintain its caller list against names known to you, hence you would just have to think a name to make a call.
Other advantages may include an inbuilt thermometer, BP meter, GPS etc to improve your lifestyle further. Of course, you would have the option of switching it off when you go to sleep.
I am still wondering how ringtones will be handled - will everyone hear your "phone" ringing inside your head or will it only be known to the owner?
Doctors may have a job cut out in case you plan to change your SIM card. Postpaid user will have to foot their bills as usual, while prepaid user may have to swallow a capsule everytime they want a recharge.
Your eyes will be used a the lens for the phone’s camera and pictures / videos will be transferred to external devices via the next version on bluetooth. You may also record your dreams!
Mobile telephony would then be similar to telepathy.
*The Timeless Facts - Things that might not change:
1.** Our phone manners may still not change. We might still keep talking to our friend over the phone while sitting inside a Cinema Hall, as improvement in technology does not force a similar improvement in our manners.
2. Unwanted sales calls will still remain. You will have to create better and better filters for the same, but it will always be breached with smarter guys on the other end.
So here’s what I think will happen when GSM moves to GPRS and it moves to telepathy in turn. While telepathy has still some time to arrive, here are a few suggestions to good readers:
1. Keep your mobile on a vibrate mode while in office, in a movie theatre, or at any public place where low noise is important.
2. Do not use the mobile camera at places where it is not appropriate or forbidden by law.
3. The "Thump" can not be everywhere. Hence do not play music at higher volumes where its not appropriate.
4. Switch off your mobile while on a flight.
5. Do not send unwanted SMSes to your firends all the time. It costs you time and money, while ones like me do not even bother to read.
Cellphones provide us with the power to reach out to anyone know by pressing just a few keys and makes us equally available. It is our hands whether we use it to our advaltage or otherwise.
For those who fell asleep midway - Sweet Dreams! and for anyone who managed to stay awake till now - Bravo!
Comments are welcome, as always.