31% of households get most or all of their calls on their cell phones. Unfortunately coverage remains problem, particularly indoors. Some rather interesting folk remedies have been suggested, but the preferred solution appears to be your own personal cellular antenna. Trials have been going on for a while now. And with a crystal clear 3G signal in your house, you may just want to skip setting up your own wireless network entirely.
posted by tkolar on Dec 31, 2008 - 24 comments

Before the advent of Cellular phones and the internet, cities around the world were entwined with a series of webs hanging precariously overhead. Their function: to relay messages from one part of town to the next. And the pioneers who were put in charge of this arduous task--the Switchboard Operators. The first choice for this new source of employment was a disappointing failure, not surprisingly, but then a new breed of worker emerged on the scene. These hardworking individuals were the epitome of good behaviour and gritty determination. Patient and understanding, they were always expected to fulfill their tasks, no matter what the cost. And, to their credit--they are still remembered today for the unique place they held in some peoples hearts.
posted by hadjiboy on May 14, 2008 - 19 comments

The Nokia Morph concept phone is currently featured in The Museum of Modern Art “Design and The Elastic Mind” exhibition (warning: flash interface). This 'self-cleaning' shape-shifting mobile follows Nokia's other recent phone concept, the environmentally-friendly Remade, unveiled at Mobile World Congress earlier this month.
posted by chuckdarwin on Feb 28, 2008 - 20 comments

Photos of payphones from around the world. More international payphone photos. Stylized payphones from Brazil. Seen enough photos? Then perhaps you'd like to start calling some of them? [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on Jan 2, 2008 - 11 comments

GrandCentral: Have a cell phone, a work phone and a business phone? This free service gives you one number that will ring all of them at once. Reviews: Slate, NYT, CNET
posted by Pater Aletheias on May 30, 2007 - 22 comments

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? Electromagnetic waves from cell phones and other sources may be the cause behind the mysterious bee colony collapses in the US and Europe, a serious problem for food crops.
posted by stbalbach on Apr 15, 2007 - 89 comments

Retrobrick sells those old giant clunky cell phones we still called "car phones." To anyone old enough to remember them, it's a little scary to think they are desirable antiques now. Too bad they aren't as sweet as these photoshop fantasies. For a little history, Martin Cooper's account of making the first cell phone call, 33 years ago, on the streets of NYC (to his rival at Bell Labs.)
posted by CunningLinguist on Jun 22, 2006 - 18 comments

A nightvision camera you phone up This seems to be a wireless CCTV camera that you phone up with your mobile and watch what is going on. It says it works in the dark. Now what would anybody use that for? As you dial it I guess it has it's own sim. "Pupillo", err horrid name.
posted by priorpark17 on May 4, 2006 - 4 comments

Badgers and Bananas. A Flashy Friday contribution mon amis. So we got the Badgers, here's the Cussing CeleBriteez (Yes re-post and NSFW) and finally Fingertips! Do I really need to explain the connection..come on!
posted by Mr Bluesky on Nov 18, 2005 - 15 comments

Apple iTunes to launch a phone. Made by Motorola nd will be available via Cingular. It will be called, 'Rokr'. Just goes to show how much Motorola dislikes 'E' s. (Razr & Rokr)
posted by benkolb on Aug 31, 2005 - 47 comments

I dont know whether to be upset or envious? Dont know about the kid market but i could totally see this for "older" (read my mom) consumers.
posted by ShawnString on Mar 16, 2005 - 48 comments

Will mobile phone porn be banned before reaching the mainstream? Startup Companies as well as established veterans alike have been itching to make a buck from the mobile market. Will they ever get the chance? Not in Israel.
posted by analogue on Mar 3, 2005 - 30 comments

Jenny, from every block. The results of dialing 867-5309 for every area code in America. Now, no one else ever has to, "just to see."
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Jan 3, 2005 - 48 comments

Last week popular peer-to-peer telephony company Skype launched SkypeOut, allowing you to call regular telephone numbers from your computer or PDA. The price list is sweet, and the global rate for selected countries looks good too. There's no press relase, news announcement or description page yet, but Heiko Hebig confirms that it's working with an early short review.
(Via Loic Le Meur Blog, Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda.)
Related on MeFi: Skype Launches.
posted by will on Jul 4, 2004 - 16 comments

Sky Ear will be a one-night event in which a glowing "cloud" of mobile phones and helium balloons is released into the air so that people can dial into the cloud and listen to the sounds of the sky. The cloud will be made of one thousand large helium balloons each responding to the electromagnetic environment (created by distant storms, mobile phones, police and ambulance radios, television broadcasts, etc.) with coloured blue, red and yellow lights.
posted by schoolgirl report on Apr 9, 2004 - 22 comments

The Old Telephone Company, Essex, England
posted by hama7 on Mar 12, 2004 - 7 comments

SounderCover Are you the type who likes to call in sick to work... from the beach? This might just be for you. Seems like phonecams aren't the only cellphone app that raises some issues. (via cacheop)
posted by Stoatfarm on Mar 4, 2004 - 5 comments

Its not your fathers P.O.T.S. Plain Old Telephone Service is undergoing a fundamental shift as companies such as Verizon, AT&T and British Telecom embrace Internet technology to route long-distance and local phone calls to compete with services from the likes of upstarts Vonage and Packet8 and Skype etc. Is this the beginning of the Telepocalypse a race to the bottom of less and less profit and more and more layoffs? Follow the history and future of the woeful crumbling of the hiearchical phone phone company at David Isen's web page Are the guts of the phone companies the class 5 switch go the way of mainframe computer
posted by thedailygrowl on Dec 11, 2003 - 9 comments

Got Lesbians? Every once in awhile I think "gee, self. I don't have enough lesbians in my life." Now there's a service just for me: LesbianPhoneCall. To quote their site they "deliver[s] you a phone call from a genuine lesbian!" You get to choose from Choose from a variety of lesbians, from militant bulldyke to on-the-fence lesbian (VERY popular). It even details what each type of lesbian is liable to talk about. Super! (via MonkeyFilter/UncoolCentral)
posted by answergrape on Dec 7, 2003 - 34 comments

Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships You can register either in Freestyle or Original (the traditional over the shoulder -style). Alternatively, you can register as a team (max. three persons / team). There's also have a Junior category for competitors of under 12 years. Grading in Freestyle is based on style and aesthetics, whereas in Original the grading is purely based on length and style. In both categories theree prizes will be awarded. The current Ukranian record is 57 metres.
posted by riffola on Jul 14, 2003 - 10 comments

Over $200 million collected for future enhanced-911 service. But the 911 of the future, which was supposed to be in place now, hasn't actually arrived. The problem? The money, collected via a mandatory cell-phone tax, wasn't actually used for setting up an e911 system at all. - Wired.
posted by cinematique on Apr 18, 2003 - 8 comments

Thought you were rid of the telemarketers? Perhaps not. It looks like they're fighting back to items like the TeleZapper that fake telemarketers into thinking your phone is disconnected by playing the three tones you get if your phone doesn't work. Castel, Inc claims their DirectQuest software defeats devices like Telezapper by reading the connect messages delivered by your public switched telephone network. Fave quote - “It’s a privacy arms race.." Will this ever end?
posted by djspicerack on Feb 27, 2003 - 17 comments

Among the most confusing dilemmas facing today's consumer is the question of which cell phone carrier is right for you. Even though Consumer Reports just published an article rating different carriers, the results are far from conclusive. I've been searching for web resources to cut through all the crap, and I thought I'd share a couple with the MeFi community, since typing "compare cell phone plans" into Google brings up a load of pop-up laden vendors thinly disguised as dispensers of advice.

• PhoneScoop.com offers the most comprehensive lists of cell phone features I've seen, a handy comparison tool, and a good number of intelligent user reviews.
• LetsTalk.com suffers from a bit of that thinly-disguised-vendor syndrome, but it is useful for comparing different services and getting clearly presented, itemized lists of each service's features. Be wary of the service comparison tool, because it's rather incomplete, but it's a good starting point to compare plans.

posted by grrarrgh00 on Jan 23, 2003 - 16 comments

Vibrating cellphones of love! "Within a year you could be able to "touch" someone over your mobile phone", says the BBC. Some people have been waiting for this for quite a while - and dreaming up VERY specific applications.
posted by theplayethic on Jan 21, 2003 - 8 comments

Christians become aquainted with the Almighty. "When the Wheat Ridge man got laid off from his computer-programming job in June, his friends and family asked what they could do to help. He asked them to pray for him and offered a daily reminder: an automated text message on cellphones and pagers. Now, Wostenberg, a devout Catholic, is offering that same technology to anyone who wants a psalm sent to him each day at 3 p.m. He's selling the service online at PsalmWeaver.com He charges $19.95 a year, plus a $4 setup fee."
posted by crasspastor on Dec 16, 2002 - 16 comments

Free electricity from the phone company. I already knew that phone lines carry an electrical current, but using it to power devices other than telephones is a new one on me. Some of these are useful, some are interesting, and some are pretty ironic. [via boingboing]
posted by shecky57 on Dec 4, 2002 - 45 comments

50 Cents, Please. Remember When A Call Cost a Dime? Soon: the 50 cent NYC local phone call. The poor state of payphones in NYC has long fascinated me. Supposedly, most don't work because of vandalism (often, the dial tone works, but the you lose your coins), but I suspect Verizon just wants to maximize cell phone sales. And I suspect the payphone is an endangered species for health reasons. What's the state of the pay phone in your city?
posted by ParisParamus on Mar 12, 2002 - 38 comments

Hackers target Cell Phones With the connectivity of cell phones to the internet, hackers have begun to target cell phones, programming prank calls, placing calls to wherever and erasing the software in the phone.
posted by Lanternjmk on Mar 11, 2002 - 7 comments

Nice or not. It looks like Verizon manages to get kudos on their service while getting relatively little exposure while they are trying to lock-in their customers. What do you think? Does it make sense to go to 3G with Verizon or should one go with competitive content providers who are willing to let you keep your phone numbers when we leave them? Which is more important?
posted by Adman on Jan 30, 2002 - 7 comments

Nokia's new subsidiary - Vertu - lays out its plans to combat street crime by developing undesirable mobile phones.
posted by mook on Jan 14, 2002 - 13 comments

Looks weird. Sounds Great. Nokia's latest mobile phone seems to be a rather weird symbiosis of phone, keyboard device, pda, and mp3 player. I guess it will take a while before it hits the USA. But me, being in Europe, I think I'd like to check it out closely.
posted by HeikoH on Oct 11, 2001 - 24 comments

Burn peanut butter not fossil fuels. Great little piece on a new cell phone charger that you windup to recharge and the promise of a windup charger any application. I always thought the windup flashlights were great but the windup radios with one speaker leave a lot to be desired.
posted by skallas on Sep 6, 2001 - 10 comments

9 out of 10 Brit Kids Have Cell Phones... and 8 out of 10 have tumors the size of oranges above their right ear. Beer with school lunches and now cell phones for kids?

What happened to tying up the phone line for hours and hours til mom turns red?
posted by jennak on Jul 2, 2001 - 7 comments

Yesterday, the Good Morning Silicon Valley webpage at the SJ Merc (which I love since it keeps me from having to see CNET's god awful ads) had an interesting blurb as an offshoot of the whole NY cell-phone safety debacle (scroll to the last item.) Columnist John Paczkowski asked if it was possible to change your pants in a moving car at 65 miles an hour. He got some pretty funny responses. What have YOU done in a moving car that you shouldn't have?
posted by machaus on Jun 29, 2001 - 23 comments

"Ultimately, the system should be offering data that discloses a cell phone user's geographic location, mood and availability." Thought this might be something to think about and speculate on. Fascinating/Creepy, as so much is these days. Reminds me of Erik Davis's piece in the (possibly) late lamented Feed on the erosion of privacy.
posted by aflakete on Jun 9, 2001 - 3 comments

This make sense. Farm workers are an ideal market for cells. It's weird how fast the way we relate to a technology changes. What do Mefi'ers think that cell phones meant when they first appeared and how has their meaning changed over the years?
posted by rdr on Jun 7, 2001 - 45 comments

Postal Savings is great. Nothing beats having a cash machine on every corner. Except maybe having a cashless Coke machine on every corner.
posted by dfowler on Apr 26, 2001 - 17 comments

Mobile phones alert husbands to cheating wives
i suppose this could work both ways...
posted by bwg on Apr 6, 2001 - 6 comments

Ready To Go DoCoMo? Big in Japan (holding 60% of the wireless audience), NTT's hugely successful i-Mode phones bring the Internet to millions in Asia. They bought a chunk of AT&T Wireless to hit North American shores in time for Christmas. Will it be a dream, or a dud? And are you ready to start building the wireless web?
posted by honkzilla on Mar 16, 2001 - 7 comments

The next time you someone with a finger in their ear they might be on the phone.
posted by john on Oct 12, 2000 - 8 comments

Dack provides a pointer to the growing backlash in the US against cell phone use. While "conspicuous" phone use can certainly at times be annoying, the general level of distaste and phone rage seems to be a phenomenon confined to the United States.
People in Europe, Australia and Asia, took to mobile technology like the proverbial ducks to water and haven't developed anywhere near the same irritation levels.
Is this just a difficult transition for a country slow to adopt a technology or says something deeper about the American psyche? Afterall, we are talking about the country that invented Dick Tracy and Maxwell Smart.
posted by lagado on Aug 3, 2000 - 14 comments

Kill all the phones. Kill all the phones.
posted by alan on Jul 11, 2000 - 10 comments

I get so much phone spam that I leave my ringer off all the time.
posted by grumblebee on Jun 18, 2000 - 8 comments

Two great products that needed a warped mind to join them into one.
posted by plinth on May 17, 2000 - 2 comments

Today's Davenetics (it's a newsletter) noticed a flurry of wireless deals came about today. AOL is planning mobile versions of instant messenger, email, and other AOL services, Microsoft is working on mobile MSN and Hotmail, while Amazon has unveiled their phone portal to shopping. Looks like we will soon be reminiscing about the good old days when the internet used silly wires and cables.
posted by mathowie on Feb 28, 2000 - 1 comment