Communications

One of the things that I (and not CJ) have inherited from my parents is my need (for it is a need) for telephonic communication.  My parents had a telephone (Stoneycroft 1936) in their first house around the time of my birth  and they were never without one and had the same number when they eventually left the house they lived in all their married life until they went to live with CJ and Jo.  Well I say the same number.  The prefix had altered variously until it expanded to 0151 (for Liverpool) 228 (one of the numbers for the former Stoneycroft area) and the original 1936.

I have never been without a phone either and, since the late '80s early '90s when  it had a  brick-sized separate battery, have had a mobile or cell phone.  I still have the same UK mobile number as I had when I got my first phone although the prefix has again altered to accommodate the huge rise in number of mobile phones.

One difference between my parents and me is that I have had many land-line numbers.  In fact I now have a number for each 'home' and a second one provided by BT in Eagleton for cheap calls via broadband.  I also have  two NZ cellphones (Vodafone and Telecom because coverage used to vary so much).  In addition I use Skype.  All a very long way from the single, operator connected, telephone which Mum and Dad started off with 65 years ago

The other difference is that today we take for granted that we can text or speak to anyone with a phone almost anywhere in the world simply by dialling their telephone number.  We are also beneficiaries of the magic  (OK it's really technology) which allows us to carry a cellphone and be contacted almost wherever we are in the world.  Do you remember when Star Trek used flip communicators?  It seemed so fanciful at the time. Now we all have one: the cell-phone of today.

As some of you may recall I have no broadband provided by the ordinary phone service and, like Adrian and one or two others of my fellow Blogland community, I rely on the cellphone network for my broadband connection.  It seems amazing that the little dongle on the left can connect me to anyone in the world on the Internet.

In New Zealand Telecom have just updated their network to 3G. and called it XT.  It features improved performance, better global roaming and a wider range of handsets compared to the older Telecom network. The XT Mobile Network differs from the old CDMA network because it features SIM cards (which most of us are used to) which allow subscribers to readily change handsets. Telecom also now advertises fast USB devices for mobile broadband for use on the XT Mobile network. So I decided to upgrade  my old broadband and at the same time upgrade my cell phone.

I used to use the most sophisticated business mobile phone until I retired and finally left the business world behind.  I then went onto the simplest flip-phones that I could put into my pocket.  But these days buying a simple phone isn't that easy. I have always stuck to Nokia phones because the logic suits me and has been carried over in all their phones though the years.

However I decided, as a Nokia flip phone isn't available for NZ Telecom, to buy a Sony Ericsson.  I am so pleased that I did.  It is so much more intuitive than the Nokias I have owned.  And now I am back to collecting my emails as well as texts on my phone.  I can also access the Internet and even use Googlemaps to find my way around.

Yes.  Modern technology is wonderful.  And I would do without a lot of things before I would give up my cellphone and broadband Internet.