| News & Citizen | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serving the People of Lamoille County with News Since 1881 | ||||||||||||||||||
|
Volume 123 No 10 No 5569 October 25, 2007 Thursday Morrisville, VT 05661 Web Edition |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
| News & Citizen | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serving the People of Lamoille County with News Since 1881 | ||||||||||||||||||
|
Volume 123 No 10 No 5569 October 25, 2007 Thursday Morrisville, VT 05661 Web Edition |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
Cell Phone Problem
Am I the only one who can’t remember all the cell phone numbers of people I occasionally need to call? So many people now have cell phones that several quite real problems with effectively using them are becoming painfully obvious. One is that the call receiver, in this case, me, often only hears snatches of conversation. Unfortunately, the caller assumes you heard it all.
But the larger problem is that some folks now have ONLY a cell phone and if you need to get hold of that person for genuinely important reasons, how can you find the number? Not every necessary call is made to someone for whom you know the telephone number. How do you find a cell phone number?
This often prompts several calls to people who know the person and might know his/her cell number. Another really “fun” aspect of trying a new cell number is whether this particular number requires dialing the area code. With this happy procedure, one gets to dial the number again after you get the recording you’ve already heard 4,000 times. Oh joy! Then, don’t forget the three numbers in front of the final four – what do those mean? They are apparently no longer the exchange, so you do not know where you are calling...you can’t even look up the exchange in our little local telephone book or the back of the Green Mountain Trading Post!
There is a huge business opportunity created by this problem; there needs to be a cell phone directory. We may all have hated Ma Bell and danced when her trust was broken and we thought we’d get cheaper phone service, but she did give us a phone book. Certainly, cell companies are making money – even when the answer to the question “Can you hear me now? is “no, not clearly.” Can’t cell users demand a phone book? Won’t they demand a phone book?
It may be true that many folks don’t use their phones as their primary phones (or claim they don’t), but I think that sort of use-it-like-a-CB for emergencies only is on the wane. Maybe these folks could just have an unlisted cell number? Maybe a cell phone directory could be printed only of those cell customers who do want their numbers to be readily available.
Frustrated callers are you with me?
