Cellularosity

Best thing that's happened to me in a long time:  I got a new cell phone.

Show you how pathetic I am:  I'm thrilled with my new cell phone.  Positively giddy with joy.

I've been playing around with it for days.  Taking pictures.  Sending pictures.  Sending pictures with sound!  Texting.  Driving friends and family nuts.

And it's not even an iPhone.

It's just a basic phone.  In fact, about the only way it's a real improvement over my old cell is that I can call people from my house.

We live in what was once a dead zone.  We don't have The Network.  Our carrier didn't have any towers near by.  When we moved here I called up customer service and asked about this.  They offered to put a tower on our property.  They would pay rent.  Then they I told them where our property was and how much acreage we had out back.

They prefer not to put towers in suburban backyards.  But if I bought a farm that had any hills, they said, I should call them back.

So for five years I've managed without cell phone service at home.  Which was fine, since the reason I got a cell phone in the first place was to be reachable when I wasn't home.   And all I had to do to be reachable was drive ten minutes away from here in any direction.  I did that a lot anyway.  So my cell phone service suited my needs, no problem, except for when I was home and on the phone---on the land line---when somebody else wanted to talk to me.  They had to talk to voice mail. 

This annoyed some people who seemed to think that if I had a working cell phone I'd have answered it while I was on the land line instead of letting their call go to my cell phone's voice mail.

Hi Mom!  Hey, Uncle Merlin!

Recently our carrier made a deal with other carriers to leach off of their towers.  But I had to have a phone that was 850 mhz capable.  So that's what I have now.

Like I said, I'm thrilled.

But now people are asking me if we're going to dump our land line.

They ask this as if it's the logical and intelligent thing to do.

I've looked into this.

Right now we have a very minimal cell phone bill.  We pay next to nothing for local service.  Our long distance service is over the internet and is very cheap.  If we were to take out the land line, drop the long distance, and rely on the cell for all our calls, local and long distance, we'd start racking up overage charges in about a week.

In order to avoid that I'd have to upgrade our cell service.  The plan that would best work for us would cost us thirty dollars more a month than we pay for the current plan, the land line, and the long distance.

Keep in mind that this is to cover just the blonde and I and that blonde has her own cell provided by her company so we don't have to figure her work-related calls into our needs.  The Mannion guys still manage their social lives face to face.  It won't be long though before the phone starts ringing three and four times a night and the call's for one of them.

I assume when that day comes they will each need their own cell phones.

Here's what I'm getting at.

What do families of four and five and more pay for cell phone service every month?  What do college students pay for their cell service every month and why do their parents put up with it?

And how come we don't find this ridiculous?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm an early adapter by nature.  I would love to have an iPhone.  At the least.  And I'm sure that one day land lines will be obsolete and cell phone service will cost next to nothing.

Someday.

But that day seems a long way off.

Right now it seems as though we've talked ourselves into paying for a luxury by telling ourselves it's a necessity.

You know, like we needed SUVs because we were doing all that hauling over unpaved roads and up snow-covered mountainsides?

People are supposedly cutting back on all their expenditures.  Not going out to dinner as much, giving up going to the movies.

Are they texting less frequently?

Are they waiting until they see their friends in the cafeteria to make plans for tonight instead of flipping open the cell phone as soon as they step out of class?

Are they waiting until they get home before they tell their spouses what they bought at the supermarket?

Are they waiting until they can get to their computers to check the ball scores and read Lance Mannion?

Ok, this is a long lead in to this article from Wired, Five Gadgets That Were Killed By The Cell Phone.

Bugged me.

Not the whole article.  And not the argument that cell phones have become the Swiss Army Knife of communication technology.  Stuff like this:

Hands up who still has a home land line with a telephone attached? Now, keep your arm in the air if you ever make calls on it. We don't see many hands.

Um, besides mine?

Depends on where the author's asking the question.  Apparently it's not around any workplace in America.

They don't use land lines at Wired?

Now this, from the section in which the author imagines the day when cell phones have sent lap tops the way of Beta Max, analog TV, and rotary dials:

It will take some time, but it's easy to imagine the cellphone completely replacing the laptop for mobile use. Sure, we might keep one at home for work, but the cellphone already does most of what our notebooks do. We can listen to music, play movies and use the internet. One day, those big old, battery-sucking computers will be an amusing relic.

Ok.  Most of those open laptops in the cafe at Barnes and Noble and at Starbucks not running spreadsheets or Adobe Acrobat.  But some of them are.  As are the ones in airports and the ones on conference tables and the ones on the laps of engineers, scientists, doctors and nurses, lawyers, journalists, Army logistics officers, salesmen and women, techies and designers on movie sets and backstage at rock concerts, students, cops, contractors, farmers, you name the profession, crouching in whatever corner of a workplace or jobsite where they can get a wireless signal, relative peace and quiet, and enough shade that the glare off the screen isn't too blinding.

Two things are missing from this article.

An actual concept of how work works.

And any sense that the world includes people over the age of 22 with a real job and a family.

Oh hell.

Now I've gone and made myself feel like a cranky old coot.

Hey, you kids get off of my lawn!

Excuse me.  I'm going to cheer myself up by making a few phone calls.

On my new cell.

Which I love!

Did I mention that?

Maybe I'll even text some people.

Comments

[Thomas]

"Two things are missing from this article.

An actual concept of how work works.

And any sense that the world includes people over the age of 22 with a real job and a family."

You just described 95% of Wired's content.

Congrats on the new cell phone!

[Rana]

Yeah, I'd be cranky too.

The thought of trying to write or process photos on anything smaller than the laptop is an ergonomic nightmare.

I have a cell, true. But I'm unwilling to pay the additional $55/month to allow it to access the internet. For that much, I can give both our laptops wireless, which is much more practical.

I also always wonder about people who drop the landline entirely. What do they do if they have a problem with the cell? What if its battery runs out? Plus it's helpful sometimes to have _both_ the cell and the landline, as when I'm calling my parents and D's calling his mother at the same time.

Cell phones are useful for what they do... but they're not going to replace either landline or laptop in this house any time soon.

[Ken Muldrew]

"The Mannion guys still manage their social lives face to face."

Much respect to the lads for maintaining a first life. My youngest daughter turned 16 today and got a new cell phone. It's got the whole QWERTY layout so her T9 texting chops are out the window; still, she is about as thrilled as it's possible to be. For me, it looks like the road to serfdom. I think I'd rather have leg irons than a cell phone.

"Now I've gone and made myself feel like a cranky old coot."

Cheer up, next to me you are as neat and cool as those clever fellows writing for Wired. I'm not even comfortable with a land line telephone!

[Janelle Dvorak]

For those of us with tired eyes, the cell phone screen (even that of an iPhone) just isn't big enough. I have a cell phone, but I use it for calling; anything else, give me my dinosaur laptop.

[Linkmeister]

We not only have two landlines, we even have phones that don't need electricity and continue to work during power outages. Even more amazingly, we have two rotary phones, with dials and everything!

[wasa]

5 family phones, unlimited texting, free calling between family phones, internet access on 3 of them at a cost of $140/month. Ain't cheap, but it keeps us all connected. We have a house phone bundled with our cable bill for $35/month. Will probably never give that up. Until the depression starts...

[uncle merlin]

I will confess here and now that I was the LAST American to get a cellular telephone!

In fact my friends held an intervention last December for me.
I was hijacked, plyed with copious amounts of single malt Whiskey and whisked home to their abode at an ungodly hour, whereupon my "friends" set up their i-mac and dialled me into a commitment for service. I went home,slept , cooked Sunday in bliss and then on Monday morning a man came to my door from FEDEX ( unusual!) and handed me a small box. There was my shiney new red Krazor,which I had completely forgotten about!

Now I can't live without it! It's the third thing that has come into my life after being born that I can't live without, the other two being Paper Towels and Plastic Garbage Bags in that order!

The landline at the cape is going, at $43.00/month unlimited local (read one town on each side of my town, not the whole Cape mind you!) my cell at $39/month is WAY CHEAPER and way BETTER I get long distance too and I can call "The Blonde" for FREE anytime!!

My college roomate has the iPhone ooooooooooooooooooooooooouhhhh... yes he lives on it with the internet but only I notice to get the financial news, and to keep in touch. There is NO digitizing with Ilustrator or Embroidery software, no picture editing so I think that article you read is all blah blah!

In fact with Satellite phones around the corner,iphones are going to be dinosaurs someday! I'm willing and ready!

[xaaronx]

Lance, I'm nearly thirty and I know one person in my age cohort that has ever had a landline that she paid for herself. With unlimited texting--which is used much more often than voice calls among pretty much everyone I know--free calls to others on Alltel and the My Circle deal I never go over on minutes. I hoonestly can't think of a single reason to have a landline at home.

Businesses are different, but you seem to over look the word "home" in "home land line". I think the idea of replacing the laptop is a little too much, but I know that if I had an iPhone or equivalent, then I'd only lug around that extra five pounds (which requires a bag to carry) when I was going to have to stare at a screen for a long while or do some typing.

I can see where it might make sense for a couple who use a lot of long distance minutes to have a landline, but even then you might be able to find a plan that would work better. And once the kinds get cells . .

There are a few situations where it seems like it just might make sense to keep home landlines but I remain unconvinced, despite most of my data being anecdotal.

And some of us do need SUVs, darn it. I'd need to drive a minivan, like I did before, if I didn't have one and then I'd have similar mileage with no four wheel drive.

[Lance]

xaaronx,

Drat. You're right. I did miss the "home" in that sentence.

Unlimited texting would cost me another 15 bucks a month. "Free" calls to people in my circle with enough minutes to make it worthwhile costs another 30 bucks a month. Plus, I don't think I'd be putting work, our doctor, the kids' schools and teachers, all the repairmen and service departments we call, various neighbors, etc. in our circle.

The boys are out of Cub Scouts so we don't have all those calls to make anymore, but other activities are beginning to require the phone.

My point isn't that people need landlines. It's that going completely cellular would be an expensive switch for us.

[actor212]

I'm fortunate.

My rural retreat still has no cell tower close by.

I cannot tell you how much of a burden is lifted off my shoulders when I get there. I might come back to a box full of voicemails and txt msgs, but while I'm there, it's out of my hands.

I am grateful.

[velvet goldmine]

Side note: Cheers to Linkmeister for reminding people to hold onto non-electric phones in case of power failures.

We've got one Trac phone for each parent and a general fallback one for the kids to take to the park or something social.

I think each parent pays about $20 each, per month, for those phone calls, and we haven't really had to restock the fallback phone yet.

But that IS on top of our landline bill -- we can't get cable, DSL or cell service out here. I think because we can't get any of those "bundle" deals we end up paying more for landlines and internet.

But as to the Trac phone, which is pay as you go, what we find is that it keeps us from getting too attached to the phoning, games, texting, etc.

Recently my daughter's friend was punished by her parents because she'd been unkind to my daughter at school, and the principal caught wind of it. Her punishment was that she had to go without cell or laptap for TWO WHOLE HOURS, and when she came to school the next day she vowed to make my daughter's life "a living hell" if that happened again.

I think she meant it. She didn't say "LOL" afterwards.