Cell phones don't ring everyone's bell

Most of us just can't live without a cell phone and we wonder how we managed all those years without one.

But according to The Houston Chronicle, a small group of die hard folks are surviving just fine without what some describe as a high-tech digital leash.

Although the number of holdouts is dwindling, U.S. Census data released Thursday indicates 29 percent of the nation's homes still do not have cell phones.

Yet Census data show the ubiquitous cell phone is increasingly becoming the communication tool of choice for the majority. Some are even disconnecting their landlines and using cell phones exclusively.

According to the new data, the number of households with cell phones exploded from 36 percent to 71 percent between 1998 and 2005. Landline ownership during this same period fell from 96 percent to 91 percent, with many in their 20s particularly seeing no useful purpose in having a hard-wired phone. Those age 65 and older were the most likely to still have landlines — 98 percent.

Myxer Delivers 10 Million Ringtones To iPhone Users

Mobile content delivery startup Myxer has officially delivered over 10 million free ringtones to iPhone users.

[via TechCrunch]

Apple overtakes Nokia in phone profits

In the race for mobile phone profits, Apple has overtaken Nokia, according to figures for the latest quarter, reports News.com

Apple earned $1.6 billion in the third quarter from the iPhone, outpacing Nokia's $1.1 billion cell phone profit to grab the top spot among all mobile phone vendors, said research firm Strategy Analytics on Wednesday.

Americans send 740 billion text messages in first half of 2009

In the U.S. alone, 740 billion text messages were sent in the first half of this year - an average of 4.1 billion per day.

[via BizReport]

7,000 fines issued in NY City daylong crackdown on cellphones and driving

Last Thursday, in a daylong crackdown, The New York City Police Department issued 7,529 fines - which are normally $130 - to drivers caught talking on their cellphone while at the wheel.

This is actually an improvement and 1,500 fewer than were written on the first crackdown day in May. However, it was about 100 more than were written on a similar day in August.

[CityRoom]

Twitter 'costs businesses £1.4bn'

Staff who use Twitter and other social networking sites while at work are costing UK businesses £1.38bn ($2.25bn) every year, a report has said, according to the BBC.

Mobile Phone Use Soars in Africa, unevenly

Some interesting figures from a United Nations report on mobile phone growth in Africa, via Voice of America.

-- In the five years between 2003 and 2008, the number of subscriptions in Africa grew by more than 500 percent.

-- In Gabon, the Seychelles, and South Africa there are 100 mobile subscriptions for every 100 people.

-- In Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, the mobile industry has only penetrated 10 percent of the population.

-- The U.N. report says monthly Internet access in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic and Swaziland is more than $1,300, the highest in the world.

-- And only five countries - Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia - account for 90 percent of Africa's broadband subscriptions.

-- While Internet access in Africa remains largely elusive, according to the U.N. report wireless Internet is spreading fast in other developing regions. India registered almost 100-million new wireless subscriptions in the first half of 2009.

M-Commerce's Big Moment

Business Week has a lengthy report on mobile commerce and how it's gaining momentum, as consumers get comfortable with ordering all sorts of products by cell phone and companies such as Papa John's watch sales climb.

... In mid-2008, Papa John's International pizza chain began letting customers order food and drinks on a Web site tailored to a cell phone's small screen. By December, customers had used their cell phones to order $1 million in Papa John's products. Papa John's says mobile sales now are rising at an annual tenfold pace.

Read full article.

USA. 4.1 billion SMS messages are sent daily

According to a CTIA Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey, over 740 billion text messages were sent over carrier networks in the US during the first half of 2009. That's 4.1 billion SMS messages being sent daily, which is also nearly twice as many as sent during the same time period last year.

[News release via Mashable]

4,130 cell phones confiscated in US prisons in 2009

Inmates and cell phones, an ongoing problem. According to The Los Angeles Times, prison officials confiscated 4,130 this year, more than in the previous three years combined.

18% of people don't pick up when their parents call

Right Mobile Phone, an online mobile phone retailer in the UK, recently conducted a survey of 3,138 British people to find out how their mobile phone impacted the emotions they feel over a given day. Here are some of the results: [via IntoMobile]

-- 71% say using their favorite song as their alarm clock

-- 80% say not receiving a reply to their text messages makes them feel “negative”

-- 41% said going by one day without getting a text message made them feel unpopular or lonely

-- Less than one in 10 people, 9% to be exact, actually laughed at a text message despite 61% of people using “LOL” in a text message

-- 18% of people don’t pick up when their parents call

Read more.

The History of the Cell Phone [Video]

Fun facts from Random "Mobile Matters" on Newsweek.

In the Philippines, SMS rates are 4,500 times overpriced

Dr. Giovanni Tapang, one of the Philippines' outstanding scientists, the chairperson of AGHAM—the association of Filipinos scientists devoted to making science work for the people—and a columnist of The Manila Times, has computed the real cost of a text message:

At current rates, its around 4,500 times overpriced.

RainedOut Text Alerts for Sport Leagues

RainedOut, a text message service for sports leagues and clubs, today announced that over 1000 sports leagues across the country are now using RainedOut to broadcast real-time messages to players, coaches, parents, referees, spectators and others.

[via press release]

Text messaging taking off, smashing records, says VeriSign

VeriSign Inc. delivered the equivalent of 26 mobile messages for each person on earth in the first half of 2009. That’s 178.8 billion messages, the Mountain View, Calif. company said Wednesday.

VeriSign delivers text messages for 700 carriers in 200 nations, connecting to some 3 billion wireless subscribers.

[via Austin Business Journal]

Japan. Mobile Phone Shipments Down For 13th Straight Month In July

Shipments of cell phones and PHS (personal handyphone system) devices tumbled 30.4% on the year to 2.62 million units in July, marking the 13th month in a row of declines, according to data released Wednesday by an industry group. Nikkei.com reports.

The latest data from the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association showed that shipments were roughly half of the 5.34 million units shipped in July 2007. With mobile phone service providers rolling out installment payment structures for handsets in 2006-2008, cell phone users appear to be waiting longer to replace their existing units.

Apple May Be Highest Grossing Fifth Avenue Retailer

From Bloomberg: Apple may be the highest grossing Fifth Avenue retailer. Better than Saks', Tiffany's and Bergdorf's? That's wild.

Also interesting in this article:

According to a survey conducted by Interbrand Corp. in December 2008, mobile phones are one of the household budget items consumers are least willing to cut back on. Respondents said they’d sooner skimp on housing, clothing, groceries and tobacco products. The only items they’re more reluctant to cut spending on than mobile service are prescription and over-the- counter medicines.

Mobile phones - Better than sex and chocolate?

A survey carried out on behalf of unified communications provider Lumison claims that Brits would rather give up chocolate, alcohol or sex than surrender their mobile phone handset. TechDigest reports.

Out of a survey conducted amongst 1000 Brits, 75 per cent confessed they couldn't go without a mobile phone for more than 24 hours. And asked what they would rather give up for a month the survey revealed the following:

-- 62 per cent chocolate
-- 23 per cent alcohol
-- 8 per cent sex
-- 7 per cent mobile phone

The survey also suggested post is now a thing of the past. 62 per cent of respondents haven't posted a letter within the past month and for 19 per cent of respondents it has been more than five years since they posted a letter.

Similar study conducted in 2007: - Young Brits would rather give up sex than their cell phones

Turkey, Italy and the UK suffer quarterly loss of customer base

Two disturbing headlines from Cellular News on cell phone networks losing subscribers.

-- UK Sees a Quarterly Loss of 600,000 Customers - In Q1 09, the UK mobile market saw its first quarterly net loss of customers for three years.

-- Vodafone Turkey Lost 1.24 Million Subscribers in Q1 2009 - Turkey followed Italy and the UK in suffering a quarterly loss to its customer base. The 1.44m decline was the largest ever seen, as well as being the first for seven years.

10% of users don't use phones for phoning

According to TechRadar, UK mobile users prefer to text than talk.

The data, from a survey by comparison site uSwitch of over 12,000 people, showed that over 60 billion texts are being sent per month, with around 67 sent per person on average.

58 per cent of mobile phone users (74 million in use in the UK) admit to only making one call a day, with 44 per cent of landline users doing less than that - showing that the art of actual conversation is being replaced by texting, Tweeting and online chatting.

In fact, around one in ten people surveyed admitting to almost never making a phone call at all.

Read full article.

India's Rural Mobile Phone Users Hit 100 Million

India had 109.7 million rural mobile subscribers at the end of the first quarter, up by 18 percent from 93.2 million users in the fourth quarter of last year, the country's telecom regulator said on Monday.

[via PC World]

Jackson death was twittered, texted and Facebooked

News of Jackson's death generated the most tweets per second since Barack Obama was elected president, and more than twice the normal tweets per second from the moment the story broke. Philly.com reports.

Plain old texting had its largest spike on AT&T's network in history. Nearly 65,000 texts per second were sent, the company said , more than 60 percent over normal volume.

Facebook said there were no internal reports of the site slowing from too much traffic. But there were slowdowns or outages on other sites. Google said the spike in searches related to Jackson was so big that Google News initially mistook it for an automated attack.

On MySpace, Jackson's own profile was seeing an average of 100 new friends added per minute, the company said, and his friend total was on its way to being the site's highest increase in one day.

... Jeff Jarvis himself tweeted the moment he heard of the death: He noted that Iran's spiritual leader should be grateful to Jackson because the story wiped Iran off the day's news agenda. "That was re-tweeted a lot," Jarvis said.

Survey: 1 in 5 teens 'sext' despite risks

According to USA Today, a new survey on kids in cyberspace finds that one in five teens have "sexted" — sent or received sexually suggestive, nude or nearly nude photos through cellphone text messages or e-mail.

Most teens who sexted sent the photos to girlfriends or boyfriends, but 11% sent them to strangers, according to the study made public today by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Cox Communications. Of teens who sext, 80% are under 18, the survey found.

Jobs: Over 1 million new iPhones sold

In his first public statement since early this year, Apple's CEO says that more than 1 million new iPhone 3G S smartphones were sold since Friday.

In addition, 6 million people have downloaded the new iPhone OS 3.0 update in the five days since its release.

[via News.com]

Koreans Spend the Most Time on Mobile Phones

A recent study has revealed that Koreans talk the longest on their mobile phones among countries that charge for outgoing calls. The Chosun Ilbo reports.

The report by KT's economic research center DigiEco says that an analysis of statistics from Merrill Lynch shows Koreans spend around 320 minutes per month on their cell phones, followed by France and Finland.

Furthermore, among countries that charge for both outgoing and incoming calls, only the United States spent more time on their mobile phones, averaging more than 400 minutes per month.

An official from KT says that Koreans tend to use cell phones at home instead of landlines and that the country's revenue stood at 8 U.S. cents per minute, the cheapest among those surveyed.

Study Finds iPhone Users Genetically Superior to Everyone Else

Well, they may not have gone quite that far, but an independent study conducted by Forrester Research found that iPhone owners are better educated, younger, more affluent, and even more productive than their non-iPhone-using counterparts.

[via Gizmodo]

Worldwide Mobile Phone Market Declined 11.9% in the First Quarter of 2009

The first quarter of 2009 fulfilled an expected trend that will last throughout the calendar year. The worldwide mobile phone market shipped 35 million fewer units than it did during the same period one year ago, and all indications point to that trend continuing through Q4 2009.

[via Cellular News]

The New York Times: 2 Million iPhone Apps Downloaded

Consumption of news on mobile devices is on the rise. At The New York Times, there were 60 million mobile views in April, nearly double the number from April 2008. Beet.tv reports.

The paper gets about 10 million views per month on the iPhone alone, a Times spokesperson told Beet.tv and Times Wire, the Times iPhone application has had nearly 2 million downloads.

New Nielsen numbers find CNN is by far the biggest player with 11.6 million unique mobile users. Second is msnbc.com with 3 million, The New York Times with 2.4 million, the Wall Street Journal with 1.7 million and the Washington Post with 700,000. (Nielsen reports just uniques not total views.)

Texting May Be Taking a Toll

Spurred by the unlimited texting plans offered by carriers like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier. The New York Times reports.

And oh-hum, something we've heard before:

The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.

iPhone doubles market share

Apple's iPhone continues its relentless advance, doubling its market share of smartphones globally in just a year, according to research by Gartner. TechRadar reports.

Nearly 4 million iPhones were sold worldwide in the first quarter of 2009, compared to 1.7 million during the same period last year - giving Apple an 11 per cent slice of the smartphone market.

Impressive numbers, certainly, but still a long way behind RIM, whose BlackBerry devices account for 20 per cent of all smartphones sold, and Nokia, whose 15 million smartphones sold cements its 40+ per cent share.