Hi Roy! :-)

 RJT> I can't believe that there's that much of a demand for cell phones,  
 RJT> though if they continue to add features maybe that would account for 
 RJT> some of it.
Well, around here it's hard to find a kid older than 9 that doesn't have a
cell phone. I don't use mine as a telephone most of the time - I use the
built-in calendar functions as an alarm clock and to remind me of people's
birthdays. The other function I often use is SMS, sending short messages of
up to 160 character to another mobile phone.

There are games on them things, on newer models you can even upload new
ones (written in Java, of all things) into the phone. New ones have
high-resolution color displays and built-in digital cameras are also quite
common.

For the "below 20" crowd, having a rather new and flashy cell
phone is considered a must-have. Older than that, lots of people need them
for work. My mother has one for emergencies, which is also the reason why
some parents buy a cell phone for their kid. This way, the kid can phone an
ambulance or home if need be, and also the parents can phone their kid in
case of something happening at home or just if they want to know where
their son/daughter is right now. ;)

I even saw an old lady (75-80 or so, I'd guess) in the bus last week who
was having a nice long chit-chat with somebody via her cell phone. :)

 RJT> I overheard a conversation yesterday where a lady in a store said as 
 RJT> to how she didn't have a regular phone any more,  they'd gotten rid 
 RJT> of it just keeping the cell phone.  I hope for her sake the network 
 RJT> never goes down.
Well, here it is an option if you live in a big city. I haven't seen a
mobile phone network problem in the last 2 years, while the regular phone
had a lot of them in the same time.

Not an option for me since I need an Internet connection for work and
university, and those always come combined with either an analogue phone or
ISDN around here.

 RJT> And there was also a bill passed recently here 
 RJT> which lets you keep a phone number even if you move from one company 
 RJT> to another,  not sure if that applies for landline to cell though.
We have that for landline and cell here, but seperately. You can keep your
landline number when changing providers, and you can keep your cell phone
number when changing providers (at least that should be possible, don't
know whether all providers are up to it yet). Landline and cell numbers are
complety seperate.

Ciao
Pascal

--- Msged/LNX 6.1.1