"MatSav" wrote:
"Bruce" wrote in message
.. .
...

I had a very early Vodafone mobile phone in 1986, a Motorola
with a
handset that clipped to the top of a lead/acid battery about
the size
of one on my 1150cc motorcycle. It was marketed as a "cellular
telephone" or "cell phone" for short.

There were only two UK networks at that time, Vodafone and
Cellnet.
Cellnet was of course a contraction of "cellular network".

So the term "cell phone" has been in use in the UK for more
than a
quarter of a century.

If I take out the SIM from my latest 'phone, and insert it (with
an adaptor) into my old 1990's Motorola mobile phone, it shows
the connected network as "BT Cellnet".


Old habits die hard. ;-)

On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:06:50 +0100, "
wrote:

On 31/03/2012 03:36, Bruce wrote:
Charles wrote:
On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 20:08:36 +0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"
wrote:

Graham wrote:
On 30/03/2012 18:40, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Guy wrote:

What is a cell phone? Used in prisons?

Oh, good grief. You use the concept in your country.

You aren't aware that mobile phones use a cellular network?

I expect he is. Guy is pointing out that you are cross-
posting to two newsgroups where we call such devices
mobiles.

So if "cellular" is an international concept, is it acceptable to everyone
else for Guy to pretend to be obtuse?

In the United States, they are called cell phones and mobile phones.

Ditto in the UK with "cell phone" often used to distinguish them from
"cordless" telephones, both being mobile.


I had a very early Vodafone mobile phone in 1986, a Motorola with a
handset that clipped to the top of a lead/acid battery about the size
of one on my 1150cc motorcycle. It was marketed as a "cellular
telephone" or "cell phone" for short.

Those batteries almost weighed a tonne, did they not?

To make and receive calls was also not cheap, IIRC.


There were only two UK networks at that time, Vodafone and Cellnet.
Cellnet was of course a contraction of "cellular network".

So the term "cell phone" has been in use in the UK for more than a
quarter of a century.

I thought that the US military had coined and started using the
cellphone concept during World War II.

I think it was the digital side (packet switching etc.) of things that
the US military and others were playing with in more recent times. The
basic cellular concept (sans automatic switching) as described in e.g.
:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_network
involves earlier zoned use by taxi firms in populated areas as a means
of re-using the same frequency on a relatively local basis by
providing sufficient distance from the nearest adjacent zones/cells
using the same frequencies but has no reference to military use.

Mind you, they were completely
different and nothing even like the bricks or dead-weights that one saw
in the 80s.

I'm not aware of any surcharged numbers other than the well-known
(within the NANP, at least) 900 and 976 numbers.

Some of the Caribbean countries have caller pays mobile, and calls
to mobiles cost more. My VoIP carrier publishes the list of number
ranges it surcharges:

http://www.lingo.com/voip/internatio...ile_prefix.jsp

For the NANP countries that do this, it's generally a random set of prefixes
which I agree is pretty user hostile.

R's,
John
--
Regards,
John Levine, , Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:15:44 +0100, "
wrote:

On 31/03/2012 10:12, Graham Murray wrote:
Graham writes:

IIRC they were also called cell phones in the UK back when analogue
cellular systems were new, complete with diagrams of hexagonal cells
covering the countryside. Mention of cell or cellular has fallen out
of use in the UK to be replaced by "mobile".

Possibly because at that time, the term 'mobile phone' was often used
for a phone permanently fitted in a car or other vehicle. ISTR that if
you wanted to call one (from a landline) you had to go via the 'mobile
operator'.

That reminds of the 1954 film ***Sabrina*** Himphrey Bogart's character
made a phone call from his chauffer-driven automobile.

Can't find that clip, though.

It might not turn out to be the same technology. Some of the older kit
was effectively the predecessor of today's cordless 'phones but with
more power and consequent greater range and tied to a particular
landline rather than working via an operator. Neither type was secure
at all and anyone using the latter in the UK was an easy target for
the authorities.

notably McCaw Cellular, they were new specialist carriers.

You mean the guy who purchased MCI's wireless business and deployed
AT&T's technology in the license areas he bought? You're right. He's not
an ILEC, but he wasn't independent. Did the guy deploy any technology on
his own, or was he merely a speculator in radio spectrum licenses?

He built some, he bought some including MCI's. He was a cable guy,
not an ILEC guy.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_M...phone_industry

R's,
John
--
Regards,
John Levine, , Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

Graham Nye writes:

On 30/03/2012 21:17, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Right. Callers from outside your country sure appreciate that
caller pays surcharge on top of the charge for international long distance,
as it's not readily apparent to foreigners that caller pays applies.

Anyone dialling from outside the UK can spot a UK mobile number as
it will start +44 7... (where + is 011 for NANP countries).

Almost always true, there is a nasty group of numbers in this range that
look like mobile numbers, this is +44 70xxx (070xxx) range which are
charged at far higher rates than mobiles and are not included in bundled
minutes. They are called Personal Numbers and no doubt catch a lot of
people out.

Phil

On Mar 31, 12:37*pm, Roland Perry wrote:

The biggest problem with the Excel was that the battery was wired in and
not a user-changeable item. Nor did they accept that it was covered by
the product's 5yr maintenance contract. (They finally settled on the
courtroom steps).

My two prior cellular phone units (both made by Motorola) had
replaceable batteries, but that didn't matter since the batteries
themselves were no longer made when I needed replacements. In both
units (one analog, one digital), the battery could only hold a charge
for a short time, making the phone cumbersome to use.

My carrier was happy to give me a free new phone. To me, that seems
wasteful, but I think they're hoping the replacement units, with their
added features, will encourage me to do more and thus run up a bigger
bill. For me, it was a pain to transition from one unit to another
since it worked differently.


For our British posters, I have a question about telephone dials. Did
the letters* on British telephone dials always correspond to those of
US dials? How about those of other European countries?

1
2=ABC
3=DEF
4=GHI
5=JKL
6=MNO
7=PRS (Q added later.)
8=TUV
9=WXY (Z added later)
0 operator (US dials had a Z before 1950 but rarely used).

I heard some countries may have had the Q and O in different
positions.

*Letters on dials were originally to aid in dialing exchange names, eg
PEnnsylvania 6-5000 instead of 736-5000. The US gradually
transitioned to "All Number Calling" by 1980.

On Mar 31, 12:30*pm, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

Worse, some carriers do not present _any_ sort of prefix for Caller ID,
so int'l calls come in _looking like_ domestic calls. *For instance, I
remember a call from a former employer's Brussels office, which had 10
digits and was displayed on my phone's screen as (322) xxx-xxxx. *I
happen to know area code 322 was reserved* and realized it must have
been from somewhere in Europe, but most Americans wouldn't--and they
wouldn't know how to return that call if they missed it.

These days, many people simply press a "dial caller" button without
bothering to listen to a message or know who the caller is. This
leads to fraud, as you describe.

It also leads to missed connections, since many callers are not using
a callable number. This would include people still using a pay phone,
people borrowing someone else's phone to make the call, people calling
form within a PBX served business*, or someone not at their regular
location.

*A Centrex served line ususally gives the correct number, but a PBX
line usually gives merely the outgoing trunk that was used for the
call.


I'm not aware of any surcharged numbers other than the well-known
(within the NANP, at least) 900 and 976 numbers. *There are several
countries in the NANP that charge ridiculous int'l toll rates for
numbers, hoping that clueless Americans can be enticed into dialing
them, but that's it. *These were formerly all grouped into area code
809, but now they're spread among a dozen or so area codes, so it's more
difficult to avoid them without checking the number first.

It is now difficult the "check the number". Companies are
discouraging calls to the Operator, and are sometimes charging for
such inquiries. Some carriers (landline and long distance) don't even
have dial zero Operators and refer such calls to "customer service".

In the old Bell System days, despite continuing advances in
automation, they always insisted on having Operators handy in case
help was needed.

Returning to trains, the PATCO Lindenwold system, while automated,
always planned to have human backup readilly available in case the
machine failed. PATCO's motorman could operate the train in manual
mode if necessary, and centralized fare gate assistants could open
gates if needed.

On Mar 31, 4:50*pm, John Levine wrote:

For the NANP countries that do this, it's generally a random set of prefixes
which I agree is pretty user hostile.

Many people today have unlimited long distance, so if they reach a
wrong number, they don't even think about it, let alone report. But
when the bill comes, they're screwed.

(In the old days the Bell System encouraged callers to report to the
Operator any dialed wrong numbers so that credit would be given. That
was then.)

Charles Ellson wrote

[...]

That reminds of the 1954 film ***Sabrina*** Humphrey Bogart's
character
made a phone call from his chauffer-driven automobile.

Can't find that clip, though.

It might not turn out to be the same technology. Some of the older
kit
was effectively the predecessor of today's cordless 'phones but with
more power and consequent greater range and tied to a particular
landline rather than working via an operator. [...]

AT&T had radiophones working in St Louis (and later other cities) in
1946, so likely that zero generation technology. I understand that
local calls could be dialed - no operator. I recall a early Ed McBain
where this is a plot point. A radio link to a central exchange just
replaced the normal landline.

I looked all this up when confused in a discussion with an American
about Robert Heinlein's _Space Cadet_ (1949) in which she said "... RAH
explains how it works. Exactly the way a cellphone does now!"

I eventually realised that to her "cellphone" just meant "radiophone",
whatever the technology that it used.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone

**In 1945**, the zero generation (0G) of mobile telephones was
introduced. 0G mobile phones, such as Mobile Telephone Service, were
not cellular, of course, and so did not feature "handover" from one
base station to the next and reuse of radio frequency
channels.[citation needed] Like other technologies of the time, it
involved a single, powerful base station covering a wide area, and each
telephone would effectively monopolize a channel over that whole area
while in use.

The concepts of frequency reuse and handoff as well as a number of
other concepts that formed the basis of modern Cell Phone technology
are first described in Patent Number 4152647, issued **May 1, 1979** to
Charles A. Gladden and Martin H. Parelman, both of Las Vegas, Nevada
and assigned by them to the United States Government. A careful reading
of their patent makes it clear that this is the first embodiment of all
the concepts that formed the basis of the next major step in mobile
telephony, the Analog Cellular Telephone.
==


--
Mike D