ISSUE 416: THE HIGH-TECH OFFICE--Alan
Zisman
Digital portable phones offer plenty of reasons
to replace those old-fashioned cell phones - Oct 14
1997
It's been hard to miss the recent advertising
blitz promoting digital portable telephones. For a couple of weeks at
the end of this summer, a blimp seemed permanently stationed above my
East Vancouver home. Gently buzzing to and fro, it carried the logo of
Fido, trademark of Microcell, one of three companies licensed
late in 1995 to offer DP service across Canada.
At the same time, Fido competitor Cantel sent
me a digital phone to play with for a month. One of the high-end models
from Swedish electronic firm Ericsson, the phone was small
enough to fit into my pants pocket, along with my keys and change.
Why the hype? Cell phones have been available for
years, to the point of being popular enough to cause their share of car
crashes from users trying to talk and drive at the same time. They've
also crashed the odd politico and celebrity's career as a result of the
ease with which cell conversations can be overheard.
PCS (Personal Communications Services) is a digital
technology, while the older cell phones are analog. So what, I hear you
ask?
While anything digital carries with it the cachet of
modernity (think of spicy digital-audio CDs versus boring old analog
cassette tapes, digital watches versus Things with Hands, high-res DVD
versus frumpy VHS tape, and so forth), there are some benefits for the
consumer -- and more for the companies offering the PCS service.
Because the signals received by the PCS phones are
simply a series of encoded numbers (like all digital signals), they can
be used to receive more types of data than just voice. PCS customers
can opt to receive voice messaging and even e-mail. Yes, real Internet
e-mail, sent from any e-mail software to an address that starts with
your phone number. (Because of the tiny screens on the phone, you only
get the first 150 characters, limiting you to the "ET phone home:
555-1212" sort of message.)
Because digital signals are transmitted digitally
(natch), they aren't as easily intercepted as traditional cell
conversations. No, this doesn't mean they are totally secure, but for
now, your digital calls are more private than over a standard analog
cell phone. As well, digital calls are billed per-second, resulting in
savings for the user because that four-minute, 13-second call is no
longer rounded up to five minutes for billing purposes.
While we're used to thinking of digital as offering
better sound quality than analog (think again of CDs versus scratched
and stretched cassette tape), PCS phones don't necessarily sound better
than analog cells. They just sound different. (Recipients of my calls
knew I was calling from a portable phone; a few times the sound quality
was so poor that I had to try again later from a real, wired phone.)
However, the PCS phones' battery life is much better than on a standard
cell; it's practical to leave a PCS phone on most of the time, awaiting
calls.
The various companies offering digital services are
expanding the areas covered; currently most metropolitan areas are
covered. Outside those areas, the PCS phone typically and automatically
switches to analog mode to thus connect to the standard cell network.
Callers can even reach your number when you're travelling across Canada
(and eventually, perhaps, worldwide as domestic services reach
agreements with overseas carriers). Of course, somebody's going to have
to pay long-distance charges in those cases!
While some customers will find the added features or
security of a PCS phone worth paying for, the service really solves a
growing problem for the cell-phone services. In major cities, there's a
growing shortage of bandwidth for traditional analog cells. Because of
the digital nature, a PCS signal takes only one-third the bandwidth of
an analog call; providers can pack three times as many callers into the
same amount of bandwidth. As a result, we're seeing furious competition
for customers, particularly between Fido and Rogers/Cantel.
That competition has resulted in prices dropping in
some cases; at first, customers had to buy or lease their phones, but
now they can get some models included in their contracts. (You may not
be able to get all features, such as e-mail, with those models.)
Personally, I'm more interested in seeing what's
available in the near future.
As digital devices, PCS phones are really tiny
computers with a radio link. That means it's technologically possible
to merge them with handheld computers. I'm waiting for a model offering
the features of both a small computer and a PCS phone, letting me write
a memo or browse the Net from the same unit I use to take a call. Add
in the other almost-here technologies of Global Positioning Systems
(GPS) and digital wallets (we'll talk about these in future columns)
and we'll be seeing a technology that could be incredibly useful.*
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