NEW CELL PHONE NUMBER RULES WELCOME (11-2003)

You need to get in touch with a family member or a friend in the
evening so you call him at home and get only the answering
machine. Assuming he must be out for the evening, you try his
cell phone. And if you're lucky, he remembered to turn it on.
Otherwise, you get to listen to his voice mail.

Then you must decide whether to leave a message, and if so, do
you leave it on his answering machine at home or on his cell
phone voice mail, or both?

A new Federal Communications Commission regulation that takes
effect this month will make contacting someone by phone a little
easier. It allows land-line telephone customers to drop their
home or office telephone numbers and transfer them to their cell
phones. 

For those who take advantage of the new regulation, it will save
them a monthly telephone bill. And for those who need to call
someone who has migrated their number to their cell phone, it
makes it easier, because they no longer need to keep two phone
numbers for that person in their list of contacts.

For an elderly person who lives alone, the new ruling can save
them their monthly telephone bill if they switch their land-line
number to their cell phone. Friends and relatives can keep
calling the same number they're used to, but it will ring to the
cell phone, whether the recipient of the call is at home or away.

For the business traveler who now has to have an office phone and
a cell phone, it means the two accounts can be combined into one
number. Again, it is a cost saving for the business and a
convenience for those trying to get in touch with the proprietor.

Not too many years ago, making or receiving a phone call meant
that you had to be in a building or a phone booth. All phones
were tied to the brick and mortar location.

But with the proliferation of wireless devices, such as cell
phones and wi-fi computer networks, being wired is quickly
becoming obsolete. Since the 1970s, a growing number of the hard-
wired home phones have a cordless handset. One day in the not-to-
distant future the traditional telephone with the coiled wire
coming out of the receiver may seem absolutely antediluvian.

Yet, there are drawbacks to transferring your home phone number
to your cell phone. For one thing, those who talk on the phone a
lot may wind up paying more, because most cell phone plans charge
by the minute after a certain allowed number of minutes per
month. 

In addition, if you do away with the house telephone, there would
be no way for two or more members of the family to talk to the
same person simultaneously, because there would be no extension
phones. For households with kids who have extensions in their
bedrooms, it might not be a good idea to get rid of the land-
line.

Still, the new FCC regulation is a good one, because it provides
consumers with more options from which to choose. They can go
totally cellular or totally land-line and use whatever telephone
number they choose. Or they can have both, which is typically the
choice today. 

For the consumer, having more options is a good thing.