Freedom for My Wireless Phone Number

Khoi

19 years ago

A couple of weeks ago, I bit the bullet on a brand new Treo 650 smartphone, partly in anticipation of possibly getting assigned to a lengthy stint of jury duty. Imagine how dumb I felt when, in response to the heightened security brought on by the recent bombings in London, the courthouse forbade the entry of mobile phones equipped with cameras. And, naturally, I was selected last week to sit on the jury for a week-plus case. Even the best laid plans of mice and mobile phones, right?

In a way, it was actually a relief to be relieved of my mobile phone, but I can’t deny that it would have made my time away from the office more productive if I’d had my Treo 650 with me. It makes me lament the relative scarcity of Subscriber Identity Module technology, or SIM cards, at least in the United States. The idea that I could pull out a SIM card from my Treo 650 and insert it into a camera-free mobile phone — while also transferring my actual mobile phone number and contact database — is enormously appealing.

All-You-Can-Eat Phones

But even if there was in fact greater SIM card ubiquity in the U.S. market, I’d like the portability concept that underlies it to be taken much further. The fact that, by and large, most of us have only one handset in regular use for our mobile phone accounts has always struck me as pretty lame. Just as people own more than one watch — a sports model for the office, a model for day-to-day use, and maybe a dress model for special occasions — I think we should be moving towards a future where we can own (and regularly use) more than one mobile phone.

These handsets have become so cheap now that there’s no good reason that I shouldn᾿t be able to buy a few complementary models and use them whenever I want: a rugged model, perhaps equipped with a GPS unit, that I can take with me on a hike. An ultra slim model that I can tuck into my suit jacket when I head off to a formal event. A model equipped with a two-way radio for work in the field. A Sidekick-like model that will allow me to work remotely. To switch between them, all I’d need to do, in theory, is swap out some sort of SIM card or similar memory chip, which could carry my mobile account identity, i.e., my phone number and my contact list. So regardless of the particular situation, I could carry a mobile phone that suits the current requirements while still allowing the people who need to reach me to dial that same phone number.

I Wanna Be Your Wireless Slave

I know that, in a way, I’m just begging to be marketed to by the rapacious wireless carriers even more — a scenario like this offers even more opportunities for these companies to prohibitively lock-in customers. Still, I think it helps resolve a problem that I think is choking the mobile handset industry, which is trying to convince customers that a single model of phone is sufficient for all the needs they might have, at least until their next upgrade. It’s led to monolithic devices like, admittedly, the Treo 650, which features a camera that to be honest I don’t even want. It was the least interesting feature in the whole package when I was considering it as a purchase and, ironically, it’s the one feature that prevented me from using it.

With stronger SIM-like features, handset designers can focus on building innovative phones that do a few jobs very well, rather than many jobs with only marginal success. As the market for mobile phones saturates, it only follows that further productizing demand for phones in a manner similar to this is the next big opportunity. Maybe I can make some of that big money, and then I’ll buy myself a second phone.