Re: Post your cell phone history!
CONSUMER'S WORLD; Unscrambling Hype In Cellular Phones
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: February 3, 1994
UNDER the glass counter top at an electronics shop in midtown Manhattan, a shopper surveyed two dozen hand-held cellular phones, sleek and bristling with buttons and controls, looking not so much like Maxwell Smart's shoe phone as like Captain Kirk's communicator.
"What is the difference between this $40 phone and this $90 phone?" asked the shopper, a man of about 60 who wanted to take the plunge into the brave new world of "personal communications."
"The power," the salesman replied. "The $90 phone is a lot more powerful. It also has digital sound."
The shopper, perhaps wary of the details, had brought his son with him. "Can I reach this phone anywhere?" the son asked.
"Anywhere," the salesman said. "It will ring anywhere."
Neither of the salesman's answers was correct. Experts in cellular technology say that customers who don't know what they are buying often do business with salespeople who don't know much about what they are selling. Besides, what determines the cost isn't the hardware. These two shoppers never asked what may be the most important financial question: Which company would provide the service for the phone?
Cellular phone companies have set up thousands of antennas all around cities and big towns. Each antenna is at the heart of a "cell," which in a city can cover a few square blocks and in rural areas can be many square miles. The phone sends and receives signals with a single antenna, which then routes the call over the conventional wired telephone network to anywhere in the world. If the user travels from one cell to another, the call is automatically rerouted through a different antenna. The phone tells the cellular system where it is so it can receive calls.
"Power" is moot when comparing hand-held phones, according to the two New York-area cellular phone service carriers, Cellular One and Nynex Mobile Communication, and Motorola Cellular, a manufacturer.
The Federal Communications Commission limits hand-held phones to six-tenths of a watt, but they usually operate at less than that, not because they are weak but because the cellular system tells them to. If the antenna can hear the caller clearly, it exercises something called dynamic power control, telling the phone to turn down its electronic volume to the minimum level needed, so that its signal does not interfere with other cellular phones using the same frequency in a neighboring cell. The process is rather like the host at a cocktail party who tells each knot of guests to keep their voices low enough so that others can also carry on a conversation.
Hand-held phones work well from the sidewalk or from inside cars in cities or in densely settled suburbs, where the cells are small. In rural areas, car phones work better because they operate at up to three watts, or five times the power of hand-held phones.
Another subject of much confusion is the "digital" cellular phone. Some just entering the market transmit in computer code, which is decoded by the phone and turned back into audible sound, in much the way a compact disk stores sound. The result is clearer sound and better range. But nearly all cellular phones on the market use analog signals, as do radios. Sometimes salespeople will claim that a phone uses analog signals but has "digital sound" in its inner workings. Phone company representatives say they do not know what this could mean.
Cellular phones sell at very low prices because companies that provide cellular service want to boost sales. They pay big commissions to the electronics shops, which in turn mark down the phones. Some phones sell for less than a Walkman or even a moderately sophisticated pocket calculator, far less than they cost to make. One model by Motorola Cellular is now offered at $19, with a $50 rebate, meaning that the store pays the customer to take it.
The big cost with cellular phones is not the hardware but the service. "It's like when someone gives you a puppy," said David A. Pinsky, a spokesman for Motorola Cellular. "You have to feed it and give it shots."
Ray P. Dolan, the vice president of marketing at Nynex Mobile Communication, said purchasers are "precommitted to the blades, and getting a cheap price on the razor."
Both Nynex and Cellular One, the other New York service provider, said that new buyers tend to use the phones heavily until the first bill comes in, then reduce their use quickly. Mr. Dolan called the effect of the first bill "sticker shock," since first bills commonly run hundreds of dollars.
Robin Traum, a spokeswoman for Cellular One, said, "They've got a cell phone most likely for the first time, and they will use it to notify people and say, 'Hey, guess where I'm calling from?' "
In the New York area, the two service companies take different approaches. Nynex, Mr. Dolan said, signs up most customers for its "simplicity plan," under which they pay a monthly access charge plus a charge per minute, which varies according to the number of minutes used in the month.
For example, for usage up to 60 minutes a month -- which may sound like a lot but is only two minutes a day -- the Nynex access charge is $29.95, and the rate is 59 cents a minute during peak hours and 30 cents a minute off-peak. (Prices for access and for each minute are lower at higher levels of use.)
Cellular One offers 60 minutes for $59.99, and additional minutes are 55 cents in peak hours and 38 cents off-peak; 120 minutes a month is $89.99, with additional minutes 45 cents peak and 35 cents off-peak. (Cellular One defines peak as 7 A.M. to 9 P.M. weekdays; Nynex defines it as 7 A.M. to 8 P.M. weekdays.)
Some companies buy service from Cellular One or Nynex Mobile Communications and resell it, but at about the same rates.
Federal, state and local taxes can add 20 percent to the bill. If the call is outside the local area, which varies by company but can include several area codes, long-distance charges apply. Cellular One customers are also charged a small fee for local calls.
Nynex said the Cellular One rate is competitive if the customer makes almost exactly 60 minutes of calls.
Nynex argues that few people have the ability to predict in advance what their use will be and that a customer who does not use all the minutes under the Cellular One plan pays for them anyway. But Jerry Reynolds, the vice president of sales at Cellular, said the company offers the plan because "it gives the customer a high degree of predictability."
Perhaps more important, each company serves a limited geographic area, and these areas are not identical. Calls from outside the area incur a surcharge, called a roamer charge, for the privilege of using a cellular phone through a second company's system.
Both companies are allied to companies serving other areas. But the alliances are spotty. A customer who makes regular trips to a given city out of his area -- to, say, a mother-in-law in Fort Myers, Fla., or a branch office in Boston -- would do well to inquire first about what arrangements the carrier has in those places. In some areas, the network will not be able to find the cellular phone, and to dial that phone a caller will have to know what region the phone is in and use a 10-digit access code first.
When a consumer decides on a company, he or she can then go to a store offering contracts with that carrier or can go to one of the carrier's own storefronts. What Should You Look For?
HERE are the most important features of hand-held cellular phones:
* Size and weight. Older models are known as bricks because of their shape and heft. If you plan to carry the phone a lot, get a small one.
* Key-pad size. If the buttons are too close together, you may have trouble dialing or using voice mail.
* Memory. Some cellular phones store 100 numbers and let you scroll through the list of names and then push one button to dial.
* Battery life. This is usually measured in "talk time" and "standby time," when the phone is turned on and can receive calls. A typical battery is advertised as providing 45 minutes of talk time and 12 hours of standby. It sounds like a lot, but if you talk for 30 minutes, using up two-thirds of the battery's charge, the standby time would drop to 4 hours.
* Cigarette-lighter adapter. Some simply power the phone, while others recharge as you drive. Some people avoid the recharging types, because partly recharging the batteries, or recharging them before they are fully discharged, may reduce their ability to hold a charge.
* Rechargers. Some are "intelligent," meaning that they are controlled by a microprocessor that charges them faster and avoids overcharging.
* Type of ring. Some models can be set to vibrate instead of bleep, so if they are worn on a belt, like beepers often are, they can alert you silently.
Most electronics shops are extremely competitive on the prices of hand-held cellular phones, but the prices of accessories vary wildly.
CONSUMER'S WORLD; Unscrambling Hype In Cellular Phones - New York Times