The Ringing You Hear Is The Future Calling

The other day someone driving his car in downtown Seattle called on his cell phone.

He was returning a call for his boss, whom I had tried to reach, but whose cell phone calls were being forwarded to California.

The woman in California took my message and forwarded it via a cellular pager that rang up his assistant in the car phone in downtown Seattle.

As I waited on the line, the dead air was filled by a soft, digitally-remastered version of Nat King Cole singing with his daughter. Dad is dead, and has been since Feb. 15, 1965, but the all-digital, all-cellular world made it possible for them to croon as if they were sitting on a couch together.

When the call finally came through, the man on the other end of the line was Dan Yeoumans, someone who used to work in the non-cellular world of politics.

“Yeah, I used to work in government. I was deputy press secretary for Booth Gardner (Washington state governor from 1985 until 1993),” he said. “But about a month ago I took this new job with AT&T Wireless Services. It’s going to be a really, really interesting business.”

And that’s what I had called about.

Cell phones are about to leap from the business world into our homes in a big way.

I knew this because the guy from AT&T Wireless Services in Spokane just sold dozens of personal cell phones to people where I work. Sometime between Christmas and New Years, the folks in my office decided now was the time to go cellular in their personal lives.

I wondered why.

When does a person know it’s time to go cellular?

And, once there, is there anything about a cellular phone personal life that is different from the old microphone-on-a-wire version?

Making the call to ask the questions provided the answers.

Since 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell heard the first words transmitted on the telephone he had invented five years earlier, the idea of “going to the phone” has been central to the entire experience.

No more of that.

The whole business of cellular phones is about feeding the impulse to take a call, or make a call, anytime, anywhere and strike up a conversaton with any person at any time.

“Really,” said Dan Yeoumans, as he pulled his car over to the side of the Seattle roadway to chat, “that is our ultimate goal: anytime/anywhere communications.”

He went on to explain:

“Whether you are in downtown Seattle, or on top of Mt. Rainier, the idea is that one day you will be able to carry your phone with you and be able to call anyone from anyplace anywhere in the world.”

And one more thing: “The other idea is that we all eventually will have just one number for our home, office and mobile phone, one number we use for everything.”

When AT&T Wireless Services introduced its digital, cellular phones last fall, it polled cell phone users and asked why they decided to go cellular in the first place.

The business results were obvious: more efficiency, being more competitive, more flexibility.

Personal users of the cell phone, however, had some far more life-changing observations about anytime/anywhere telephones.

Half of everyone who used a cell phone for personal calls said the phones helped their relationship with their children. The kids could call anytime, anywhere, and so could the parents.

More than 80 percent of personal cell phone users said the new phone allows them to maximize their personal time. In a very real way, the cell phone was seen as adding precious minutes for personal events and conversations. When the urge came to call a friend, or a family member, it was possible to do it while driving, or waiting in line, or being somewhere that before didn’t allow a personal time out. Connections are quick.

Many women who use cell phones said they feel safer. They know they can call 911 in a hurry, and they feel more at ease in helping out strangers, according to the poll.

Of course, the batteries need to improve.

And, the cost per-minute needs to keep going down.

But these things will come.

The cell phone right now is moving out of the office and into the purse and onto the bedside table.

In time, we likely will be talking to anybody, anywhere, anytime and wondering how people ever got along by having to go to the phone.

Then will come the cellular fax, the cellular Internet access, and perhaps cellular two-way video.

There is a downside.

Soon, it will be hard to find a place in the wilds of Idaho or the middle of the wilderness where any of us can go to truly get away from the phone.

, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the editor of The Spokesman-Review.