Mobile Phones: Are You Loyal to Your Phone or Your Network?
Every night I debate with myself whether to leave my mobile phone on or not. My wife and I have children and close relatives who live in different time zones all over the world, from Hawaii to London. And as a frequent international traveler, I often sleep in a hotel bed somewhere in Europe, the Middle East, or Asia.
Life is complicated enough, I think, without being awakened in the middle of the night by a business colleague who didn’t know it was 2 am my time when he called. Or what if I get a “wrong number” call at 3 in the morning? Two weeks ago I awakened to the buzzing sound of my phone in “vibrate” mode, only to find that Verizon Wireless had chosen 4 in the morning to send me some text messages regarding two phone numbers I had sought from their “Information” line the previous day! And my wife told me she discontinued her “alerts” from Bank of America for the same reason.
But this last Sunday morning, at 4 am, my phone buzzed with a call from the Immigration folks at London’s Heathrow airport. My 15-year-old son had just arrived there to see a friend of his. We had seen him off the previous night, and even though we had armed him with fresh laundry, pound notes, a debit card for emergencies, and a “call home” AT&T credit card number, we forgot to send a letter of authorization with him – so the authorities wanted to verify that he wasn’t a runaway. Problem handled, emergency averted – but what if my cell phone hadn’t been on? (We were spending the night at a friend’s house in another city, so our son would have had no other way to contact us.)
Mobile phones are marvelously useful, of course. I don’t know what we ever did without them. But neither Verizon nor Motorola, who makes my phone, is providing the service I really need, which is the ability to screen my calls automatically by time of day.
Now what’s interesting is that EITHER the phone manufacturer OR the network company could provide this service, and the service would make customers more loyal to them. The manufacturer, for instance, could easily design a mode for the phone allowing “priority” designated numbers in the speed dial registry get through, while “non priority” numbers go to voice mail. Thus, just before bedtime I could switch to that mode and sleep more soundly. But the network company could make it even simpler. I should be able to go online and set up this priority system myself for every number on my registry. But so far, neither company has provided this kind of service.
Anyone else out there have some other ideas for new products or services that might improve the usefulness of mobile phones?
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The premise of your title--being forced to choose between loyalty to phone or provider--is the biggest problem of all. If all mobile phones were unlocked and if the unnecessary contractual ties between provider and phone were severed once and for all, your options would multiply.