The Cellphone Invasion

[ffutures]

Just saw a rather scary newspaper clip - don't know which paper it comes from. According to the Mobile Data Association there are now more mobile phones than people in the UK and several other countries including Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Italy and Luxemburg. Can't find this on the MDA web site, which seems to be mostly members only. http://www.mda-mobiledata.org/mda/ if anyone wants to check it out.

While I suspect that a proportion of these are old phones which people aren't using, it does seem a little bizarre. If this were to turn up in (for example) Doctor Who it would be evidence of an invasion by telephone-shaped replicators or something. And unlike the theory that cats rule the world, I for one will NOT welcome these particular alien masters...

Comments

[raygungothic.livejournal.com]

Does the number include mobile devices that use the phone network but aren't actually phones, just have embedded phone circuits for their own use? Because there might be quite a few of those these days (things that automatically send text alerts and so on)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No idea - but the clipping just says phones.

[norwegianne.livejournal.com]

I might be one to up those statistics - I currently own two mobile phones. Granted, I have the valid excuse of my Danish one not working outside of Denmark, while my Norwegian one does.

But then again, most other people I know either have one or none mobile phones, so... ?

[ci5rod.livejournal.com]

I could be contributing to those statistics. I have two mobile phones. Or rather, I have the husks of two dead cellphones that I haven't yet chucked in a bin. Neither has valid network package to go with it.

I'm free, I tell you, free!

[dsample.livejournal.com]

Many people I know do own multiple cell phones. The one they currently use, last year's model, the year before that's...

I know one guy who still has his original brick cell phone (you remember the ones about the size and weight of a brick.) Of course he's owned about a dozen since then too, and still has half of them.

I am still cell phone free.