Less is more!

In the past few years the cell phone companies have been pushing digital cell phones. Lets examine this a little. What are the advantages of using a digital cell phone? There are some benefits. They have pretty long talk times and are smaller than their analog counterparts. On the other hand, they are terrible for one small use. What is it? Oh yea... talking! Here is a sample conversation with a friend of mine who has a digital cell phone. It is not a cheap one. His name will be changed to protect the guilty.

(RING)
Mike: Hello?
Me: Hello Mike?
(pause)
Mike: Hello?
Me: Mike?
Mike: Jack?
Me: Hi Mike, I was just calling about...
Mike (interrupting): Jack?
Me: Can you hear me?
Mike: Hold on a second. (intermittent static as he moves to a more convenient location) Jack?
(conversation starts)

This is typical of every conversation that I have with a person who is talking on a digital cell phone. Another unique selling point of digital cell phones is their automatic hang up feature. You know what I am talking about? You will be talking to someone and suddenly the connection will go bad. It is not because their battery went dead, it is because they stepped a foot to the left and lost their connection. That is the problem with digital phones... They are digital: on or off. All or nothing. At least analog phones gave you a little burst of static if things were getting a little bad. If you were getting a little out of range, you would progressively get more static. Although a bit annoying, it gave you a hint that things were going to get hairy soon. I think that this is a lot better than the alternative...

dead silence.

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