Single cellular lifeform
Summary Description Simon Vandore skips GSM and goes straight to CDMA.
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Roullas Top10 Simon Vandore

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Editorial InformationArticle Location
Article Topic Vandore
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Story Group 000924
Post Date 22/09/2000 05:23 AM Status Posted Entered by Simon Vandore on 18/10/2000 08:15 AM


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Content
Introduction
My new mobile phone is ugly. Silver on the front, black on the back, and a chunky earpiece that looks like it was made in the 1980s, not purchased last week. But I like it!

Body
In 1998, I co-wrote a 12 page article on the future of mobile phone technology. Fortunately it just required research and interviews, not opinion, because I was pretty embarrassed -- I'd only ever used a mobile phone once. Email was enough for me and I didn't want to be any more contactable, particularly regarding my work. And having done my research on GSM phones, I wanted to avoid the electromagnetic radiation associated with that protocol -- I decided to wait for CDMA.
Recently I had trouble getting a second landline from Telstra, which has contracted out the installation process in my region of Sydney to a third party. Thanks to all-you-can-eat Internet, friends and family have come to think of my phone line as permanently engaged. Either I call them, or they email me. Not good enough!
Plenty of new phone companies have appeared offering sweet deals, but I'm not usually a sucker for advertising. Either that or it has the wrong effect on me -- for example, the recent Glynnis Nunn advertisement for Telstra (where she hovers between a computer, a phone, a mobile and a block of chocolate) made me buy some Cadbury's. It was my father who suggested Orange One, because the advertising convinced him that it would free up my phone line when I was on the Internet.
It doesn't. Orange One is simply a mobile phone that incurs the same local/STD/international rates as a landline when it's near your home. Any existing landline is unaffected (and in my case, still engaged). You are given both a mobile number, which will reach the phone anywhere and cost the caller mobile rates, and a new local telephone number. If you are near your home when someone calls this local number, the call goes to your mobile and is charged as a local call. If you are out of this 'Localzone', the call goes to voicemail. You can elect to have such local calls redirected to your mobile number, but you will then bear the caller's mobile call charges while they still pay for a local call. Ouch!
Essentially it's a solution for one person, because it would be impractical to have a shared household phone that someone was always carrying off to work. But I am a single man and apart from my need for a second line, I discovered the Orange network used CDMA. Time for some more research.
My sister told me one of her friends bought Orange One and it echoed. After browsing customer reviews of mobile phones on epinions.com, I discovered a similar complaint about one of the Samsung phones offered by Orange. The second Samsung offered had good reviews and looked cool as hell with its flip-top lid and Olympic logo, while the final alternative was a dorky Qualcomm model with a big screen.
Sorry Samsung. Even though I attended the glitzy Samsung 'Digitall' launch in Singapore last year and was very impressed with the product range, I shelled out for the Qualcomm. The Americans do high technology too well (watch our dollar slide!) and Qualcomm invented CDMA.
After years as an early adopter of other hardware and the Internet, I've finally entered the mobile communications era. And very nice it is, too. By the way, the salesperson let me in on a little secret -- Orange is underselling the Localzone aspect of these phones and one of their customers reported local call charges extend in a 4km radius from their home.
I've discovered that it's possible to get off the ferry from work and make local calls as I walk the 20 minutes to my house. I've also discovered that my boss knows my number . . . Sorry, can't talk, I've got some work to do.
Vandore appears every Friday on Newswire. You can contact Simon Vandore on svandore@acptech.net.


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Bulletin SummarySingle cellular lifeform
Simon Vandore skips GSM and goes straight to CDMA.

WAP SummaryVandore: Single cellular lifeform
Simon Vandore skips GSM and goes straight to CDMA.

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Vandore: Single cellular lifeform

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