Your Cell Phone

A growing number of Americans use their cell phones as their only phones, and the use of cell phones instead of land lines is even more common in Europe and Asia. How should you decide if cell phones could handle all your telecommunication needs?

One reason many people used to keep their home phones was their phone number. Today the law allows you to “port” those numbers, even to cell phones. Many people have also found that the “free nights and weekends” offered by most cell phones allows them to scale back their home phone payments. However, to compete with cell phones, the landlines companies have begun offering competitive prices that include unlimited calling.

Using cell phones for all your phone calls can be more expensive than using land lines for all your phone calls. But since most people today use cell phones, upgrading your package of services from the cell phones company could still be cheaper than maintaining both cell phones and land lines.

There are some reasons why you might not want to let cell phones be your only phones. If you use dial-up Internet access, it’s a lot more difficult and expensive to use cell phones than landlines for that purpose. If you’re used to having a phone in every room, you might not want to just have one cell phone unless you are used to carrying it with you at all times. Also, if you do a lot of talking, cell phones need to “sleep” once in a while to recharge their batteries. If your cell phone goes dead while you’re talking, it will take a while before you can finish the conversation.

All sorts of ringtones are available for cell phones these days. The only limit on what ringtones you can use is the type of cell phone you have. Cell phones come with a preprogrammed collection of ringtones from which you can select. Many cell phones will also allow you to download new ringtones whenever you like.

Some phones allow you to set different ringtones for different people. You can choose one of the ringtones for friends, one of the ringtones for family, one of the ringtones for business associates, and one of the ringtones for unknown callers. With some cell phones, you can set different ringtones for every person in your cell phone’s memory. This, in effect, becomes a kind of caller ID for your cell phone; with different ringtones, you don’t even have to look at the cell phone’s display screen to know who is calling.

One drawback to using too many ringtones is that you need to be the kind of person who will recognize each tone and what it means. When you’re home alone, it’s not a problem, but when you’re in public, it can be embarrassing if you don’t recognize that it’s your own cell phone that is ringing!

One trick for using and remembering personalized ringtones to identify different callers is to let them choose their own identifying ringtone. You are more likely to remember that your best friend is calling if you remember her choosing her favorite song.

When selecting the ringtones to identify different people, make sure that you don’t choose one as a private joke that could turn into a public embarrassment. “Fat-Bottomed Girls” may help you recognize a call from a chubby friend, but don’t use it if you’re not sure she’ll get the joke.

Cell phones have greatly increased the usefulness of “drive time,” and talking on a cell phone can certainly make a car trip go by faster. But we’ve all heard the horror stories about accidents caused by drivers who were talking on their cell phones, and many people have had close calls that they could see were caused by someone paying more attention to their conversation than their driving.

Some states have made laws against using cell phones when driving and other states and municipalities leave it to a policeman’s discretion to decide whether or not to ticket drivers using cell phones. This does not mean that you cannot use cell phones in your car, but it does strongly suggest that if you do a lot of talking on cell phones when you are driving, you should consider adapting them for hands-free use. Most laws only pertain to the use of hand-held cell phones.

Using cell phones responsibly while driving is only common sense. It’s always safer to have both hands on the wheel. It’s best to have voice-activated dialing for cell phones being used in the car so that you don’t look away from the road to dial your cell phone. And it goes without saying that if you’re driving, you shouldn’t be using cell phones to play games or take pictures. Cars cost a lot more than cell phones do!

Cell phones can also suffer if you leave them in the car. The batteries that power cell phones can be damaged by heat or cold. If cell phones get too cold, it’s wise to bring them indoors and let them warm up before trying to use them.