Cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems.
I carry around a little stool to stand on when people want a picture with their cellular phones.
As I walked down the street while talking on the phone, sophisticated New Yorkers gaped at the sight of someone actually moving around while making a phone call. Remember that in 1973, there weren't cordless telephones, let alone cellular phones. I made numerous calls, including one where I crossed the street while talking to a New York radio reporter - probably one of the more dangerous things I have ever done in my life.
We have all the technology to record things in the streets. Now the historians cannot twist it or change it, because we have cellular phones or video cameras, and we are filming in the streets what's going on. We have the voices of everybody recorded. There's too much recording and I think that's wonderful.
The dynamic is unmistakable: fixed lines for phones have been declining at a three-percent rate for the last several years, while the number of Americans opting for cell phone calling keeps increasing. If you are a fixed line provider this trend means trouble. Many of the fixed mobile convergence strategies under consideration end up utilizing a smart phone or dual-mode VoWLAN/Cellular phone that works like a landline phone in the local area and then converts to cell phone calling.
As one of the first employees at a small cellular phone start-up called Nextel, I gained firsthand experience in how a business grows from an idea to a company that, at its peak, employed many thousands.
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