What essential item does a cell phone have that a plug-in-the-wall landline phone does not have?
A 'send' button.
Long ago at my first grown-up job connecting calls around the world - USSR, India, Lebanon, etc - our ancient equipment had an important button to the top right of the desktop keyboard.
The send button made it clear to the machine that you had finished dialling the number. It was important because not all countries have 10 digits to reach their home.
With a cell phone you've got to press 'talk' to get your call out too.
The fact that send buttons aren't universal on all phones limits our telephone number possibilities.
With send buttons, not all phone numbers would have to be 10 digits. The phone company could make money too, by charging more for people willing to pay extra for a shorter phone number.
It would also make dialling easier than the currently prevalent 10 digit dialing system, and the constantly new arriving area codes -( 438 - !? Puh-lease!) would end.
If you had a chance to pay $5 extra per month to have a six digit number, wouldn't you consider it? It'll never happen until manufacturers put those send buttons on all phones.
For the record, the only shorter numbers going are zero, for the operator, 311 for the city of Montreal, 411 for information, 611 for repairs, 711 for deaf services - accessible only for those with TTYs, 811 for Montreal health department (since May) and 911 for emergencies, call 'em up and ask them the score of last night's hockey game.
So the campaign starts here - Canada must pass a law ordering all phones have 'send' buttons on 'em.
In my country, we ran out of numbers so some cellphone numbers (especially pay-as-you-go) have an extra digit. It's actually just a nuisance, because people think they have noted down the wrong number (BTW - this also demonstrates you don't need a "send" button).
ReplyDeleteIf you do like the send button, you could always get a nifty office-phone with a speaker button ;)
This plan would allow for shorter phone numbers. And really, short phone numbers are pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteFor example if your number is 514-932-3242 someone else could have 514-932-324 and someone else could have 514-932-32 and someone else could have 514-9323. The only way for this to work however would be if all phones were equipped with send buttons because otherwise the phone system would be confused as to whether you had finished dialling or whether you simply wanted to reach that other shorter number.