The Death of the "Cell Phone"

PreacherTom writes "Once upon a time, the now-eponymous portable derived its name from the small sections (deemed "cells") into which a city was divided in order to keep voice calls smooth and uninterrupted. Today, it almost seems that voice calls are the least-used function of most phones, while Wi-Fi and WiMax use ever-growing amounts of network bandwidth. Both make the "cellular" moniker obsolete. Is it time for a new name, or is a rose by any other name still as sweet?"

Comments

We already have one

[stupidfoo]

"Mobile Phone" or just "Mobile"

Re:We already have one

[Timesprout]

or "Handy" if you are German

Re:We already have one

[StarvingSE]

+1 freakin' hysterical

Re:We already have one

[tylernt]

Using satellites would introduce too much latency to be practical for routine phone calls

Almost -- using geostationary satellites would introduce too much latency to be practical for routine phone calls. LEO or Low Earth Orbit satellites are close enough to introduce minimal delay though. In fact, Iridium and GlobalStar (and the older Inmarsat) satellite phone services use LEO satellites. There is still a little bit of lag, but not too bad.

Re:We already have one

[inKubus]

Yeah. I think the main problem plauging mobile phones is the providers themselves. They insist on crippling the phones, making it impossible to create your own software, and charge too much. There is simply no economic incentive for them to do more than they already do.

People like the homebrew mobile club are trying to make a new device that takes the mono out of the poly and gives us all a chance to make it big in the mobile arena. Until the hobbiest can play and innovate, the industry will never be ubiquitous. Look at the PC platform; it really was what led to the widespread adoption of the Internet. BBS's were there first. I don't believe that homebrew mobiles are going to be the wave of the future (where everyone builds their own mobile), but I do believe that it will force innovation that the monopoly providers are not capable of.

Every day I look at my phone and wish I could do more with it. Just play with it, customize features, etc. And though this is somewhat possible with BITPIM and hacking the control software, it's not the same as having a phone with an open operating system that I can install whatever capabilities I want on it. I don't even care if the device is totally tiny; I'd be happy with a brick that can talk on the mobile nets, low battery consumption, etc, provided it can run anything I want and do anything with data that I want.

This device would go far beyond the Palm mobiles and far beyond the blackberry in customizability. The whole thing would be based on components which can be plugged together to make a whole device. So, you could choose your case, your processor, your screen, your radio, your memory, camera, OPERATING SYSTEM etc. and it would all be modular components. You could even have a small hard drive ala iPod. The whole thing could run of a variety of power sources, from off the shelf batteries to car to the wall without a bunch of stupid adapters. And of course it could connect to computers with USB, bleutoof and ethernet (wireless or wired).

Then, in public places you could have special docking stations that would give you access to a fullsize keyboard, mouse and screen. You could have tons of software that could do anything. For instance, since anyone can write software, a local restaurant might higher a phone geek to program a special server at their restaurant that gives the specials, and handles the bill. The bill could be signed authentic with a private key of the restuarant (thus getting rid of all those pesky receipts come tax time).

I can think of hundreds more. The best part is I DON'T HAVE TO. Because anyone can think of anything and do it, stuff no one has even thought of will come out. Voice services based on asterisk are just the beginning (not that running your own mobile provider wouldn't be awesome)

Anyway, although the cell network is pretty crappy, it works. They have covered most of the country with at least analog service. The idea we need to focus on is riding on their investment; we can't afford to WiFi the country or even a city in most cases. Although, along those lines, an automatic Wifi exchange would definitely open up the airwaves a lot more, because private individuals have a motivation to open their bandwidth. Anyway, the main thing holding back innovation isn't the network, it's the hardware and provider monopolies on the hardware. So, fight back, join the club, make a cell phone, etc.

Re:We already have one

[TheRaven64]

Is it really that bad in the USA? In the UK, I got a Nokia N70 with my contract, which acts as a modem over bluetooth (so I can use 3G speeds from my laptop or other bluetooth-enabled device), supports bluetooth file transfer (although not as well as Ericsson handsets do), and allows me to install Symbian and J2ME apps. Oh, and plays non-DRM'd MP3 and AAC files.

The file manager that comes with the phone, for example, is quite bad, but there is a free third-party one that is a lot better. On my last contract, once my handset was too old (and the NiMH battery lasted 10 minutes on a full charge), I bought a cheap replacement on eBay and just swapped the SIM card over. If you get a handset from a network, they lock it to their network (and it costs something like £10 to get it unlocked, if you can't do this yourself), but they don't disable any features. If they did, people would either switch to a network that didn't, or get the contract without a handset (which is cheaper) and buy a handset elsewhere.

Some providers even provide pay-as-you-go SIM cards for free, on the basis that you need to buy credit to actually use them (they come with something like £1). With the rate people upgrade handsets, you can pick up 1-2 year old model for next to nothing.

the UK

[VJ42]

Here in the UK, it's never been called a "cell phone", everyone I know has always called it a "mobile phone", or even just a "mobile", anyway, so no need for a name change this side of the Atlantic.

Re:How vacuous

[Andy Dodd]

Yeah. Someone (read: the article submitter) clearly fell victim to Sprint's "The clear alternative to cellular" marketing BS.

"The clear alternative to cellular" translates in Sprint's case to "The clear alternative to ourselves" because their system was still cellular (simply digital instead of analog).

Voice, data, whatever - It still fundamentally relies on breaking up a service area into small cells to increase capacity. Heck, municipal multi-accesspoint WiFi networks take the "cellular" approach to whole new levels, given the incredibly small coverage areas of most WiFi access points.

One can always argue the definition of "small" as far as cells go, but it's usually pretty clear when compared to traditional broadcast TV/radio systems or "public service" VHF/UHF systems which have coverage areas of miles even in densely populated areas.

Really?

[KeepQuiet]

it almost seems that voice calls are the least-used function of most phones

And it almost seems that the author of this article has no clue about what he writes. Except capturing a few (bad looking) pictures with my phone, I don't use it for anything else but talk to someone. Actually I wish there were a small phone with excellent reception, battery life and a reasonable price. Almost all phones in the market is full of junk and very expensive. What the cell phone companies give for free is either brick sized or bad quality.

Re:A Better Name

[Dun Malg]

The first manufacturer who comes up with a name like that will be sued off the planet for false advertising. Besides, mobiles (as we call them) are still powered by a cell, aren't they?

"Cell" is short for "cellular", which refers to the use of multiple short range antennas with overlapping coverage, not the power source.

Inaccurate definition

[Chairboy]

Saying that the cell part comes from geographic "cells" is simply inaccurate. It refers to the frequency mapping used to allow bidirectional communication over radio through use of frequency "cells". I have charts of cell frequencies from the analog days that diagram this. Imagine a hex board, the kind you would find when playing an RPG in your parent's basement. Each hex cell has a frequency. The spread of the specific frequencies is such that each cell around it is theoretically just far enough away to avoid interference. When you'd make an analog call, you'd stake claim to one of the cells, and based on availability, the phone or tower would choose one of those surrounding cells and use that as the frequency for the other half of the phone call. In large crowds or traffic, the phones could lose the ability to get a signal because there were no frequency pairs available (because they were all in use).

So in short, cellular describes the radio frequency mapping, not the geographic spread of "cell" towers. Oh, and the claim that nobody talks on their phones anymore is bollox, as demonstrated by the various people who cut me off in traffic this morning while yammering away on their phones. I'm assuming that they weren't simply using them as ear heaters.

Re:Inaccurate definition

[kaiser423]

Actually, depending upon the type of network, a geographic ocntext is better than a frequency network.

Typically, each hex cell is divided up into 3 frequencies of 120 degree coverage because you need the extra frequency bandiwdth to shove extra users into the cell -- it's more cost effective. The next cell's 3 frequencies are aligned so that adjacent cells don't have antennas of the same frequency pointing at each other.

Regardless, cells are largely still determined geographically. If there's a lot of users in a geographic location, there's a large number of small hex cells to handle the volume. If you're in the country, the hex cell is much larger. Nothing to do with frequency concerns, but rather geographic distribution of people.

Cells do use spatial and frequency diversity to work their magic, so it's misleading to say that the important issue is the frequency, when really it's both -- and in general is determined by the user distrubution geographically, rather than frequency concerns.

Old sayings die hard.

[suparjerk]

I think "cell phones" will always retain their names even after the terminology no longer makes sense. We still "roll up" our windows, "turn on" our television sets and "hang up" our phones.

This is why I don't use Sprint!

[pctech3]

I see that they have even brainwashed their own techs. The term 'cell' was strictly a geographic division with auto switching between sites, and the fact that Sprint tried to convince the public that they supplied something totally different when they didn't really turned me off to them.

Sprint didn't really have anything new to sell, so they made up the myth that they had something different than cell phones which was just 'smoke and mirrors'. Then when they divided the city up into 'supercells' that could not talk to each other without incurring additional fees that was just the cake on the icing!(sic)

If the PCS was actually the first digital phone, they should just have marketed 'the first digital cell phone' instead of trying to change the name of the device. (PCS - Personal Communication System) That just added more confusion to an already confused consumer base, and actually slowed the growth of the industry for some time.

Oddly enough, all of the 'mobile phone' towers are still legally called 'cell site towers', even Sprint's. And by the way, the hexagonal cells were not real, they were just for educational purposes. They were actually random shaped as the terrain and available tower locations required.

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