From: Damien Raphael Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 22 2001 - 01:33:50 MST
On Sun, 18 Mar 2001 15:55:37 -0800
hal@finney.org wrote:
> > No disposable cell phones (in the sense of throwing them away; you may be
> > able to rent them while travelling, etc., but you'll have to return them)
>
> He forwarded this article from the L.A. Times about a disposable cell phone:
> > http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/ttimes/20010308/t000020343.html
>
> That's pretty amazing, although I'm still skeptical that this will really
> make commercial sense. A step in this direction I have recently seen
Charlie Stross said on rec.arts.sf.written on 28 Feb 2001:
Message-ID: <slrn99pn6j.9o0.charlie@antipope.nsl.co.uk>
"Today, they sell 60,000 units every four weeks. More than 60% of the
population have their own mobile phone; the default assumption is that
everyone you know has a personal number. You can send text messages to
them, or roam anywhere in Europe and expect connectivity (if you have a
triband model). Call costs are in some cases lower than for a land line,
and line line call costs have dropped substantially in real terms since
1985. The phones are so small they get lost in a shirt pocket, so cheap
that the leather case costs more to buy than the phone, they'll stay on
standby for a week off a single charge, and you can buy a disposable
pre-paid phone for cash in any supermarket or mom'n'pop store.
(Note that if you're in America you're at least a year behind the times on
the cellular front :)"
So it sounds like they've got some sort of disposable phone already. Maybe he
or someone can expand on that.
-xx- Damien X-)
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