Prepaid cell phones are a great option for people who are looking to avoid the hassles involved with signing a contract and the costly expenses that come with overage charges. These days, you can find a lot of prepaid cell phone plans that can rival the service you would get with a traditional service. Many of the large companies who have the typical two-year contract model offer prepaid or pay as you go methods of mobile phone use.

As a result, there is a lot of choice out there. This is good on the one hand, because it means there is competition and a lot of different companies to choose from, but it also makes it difficult to narrow it down to one company and actually make a choice. You also want to try to find the best deal and that involves comparing postpaid and prepaid cell phone offers to each other to find the best value for your precious money.

The last thing you want to do is pay too much and not use all the cellular minutes you pay for. But you also want to avoid paying too little, so you run out of minutes too soon or have to pay expensive overage minute charges.

Most of the well-known cell phone networks offer post paid as well as prepaid plans. It is worth your while to look at the costs of both, as you keep in mind how many minutes come with each plan. Virgin Mobile offers a pay as you go plan that includes the feature of roll-over minutes, which means you get to carry unused minutes over into the next month and use them. Typically, this can be a welcome feature in a post paid cell phone plan, but as an incentive, often you see a company offering this same feature in a prepaid plan. So keep your eyes open for deals like this, where you can get post paid features in a prepaid plan.

Keep in mind that some prepaid providers charge a daily fee for use of their phone minutes. An example is Verizon. So while their prepaid plans may seem like they’re saving you money, you must remember that you will be paying an additional charge for each day you use the phone. In Verizon’s case you pay a dollar a day for use of the phone. Just factor that into your overall calculations and see if it still makes sense and saves you money.

You need to consider numerous factors as you search for the cheapest option for your mobile communications. Look at as many companies as possible and compare and contrast the benefits of each plan. One other thing you should know is that most prepaid cell phone providers do not provide a free cell phone. It is typical for a company to offer a free phone when you upgrade your plan or sign a contract extension. Since there is no contract involved in a prepaid cell phone agreement, that incentive is gone.

Check the prices of the phones that work with each offer. Often you will be able to find a good deal on a cell phone on eBay or Craigslist. It just takes a little time and research. The beauty of the prepaid model is you can screw up and sign up with a service you end up not liking but you don’t have to stay with them because you never signed a contract. Thus, there is no cancellation fee, which can be a total rip-off.

After so many years, cell phones have come a very long way from its origin. They came on different sizes, from small, medium to large. When the first cell phone was released to the public, it can only be used for calling and it looks like an ice crasher. Now, cell phones are like mini versions of computers, digicams and radio. It can now take pictures with the quality of digicams, browse the net like using your own computer, and listen to mp3s like your radio component in your home. Cell phones today also become slicker than before like the new IPhone from Apple. But, what is really interesting these days are what the new IPhone 3G can do and the upcoming Android from Google, the search engine giant in the world.

IPhones for me is a really cool gadget. It has its really good user interface and a very slick design. Imagine having it and playing with it all night long, it really feels awesome. But, unfortunately IPhones here in the Philippines are expensive so it is not on my wish list yet. As a CSIT major, I want to have an IPhone to let myself learn new things by developing apps for the IPhone since bleeding edge for me is always the best. There are so many applications nowadays that are developed for the IPhone and one example of them is the Sekai Camera from Tonchidot The first time I saw Sekai Camera while reading my feeds from TechCrunch, a technology news site, it really ticks my curiosity and so I read further. Sekai Camera can enable IPhone users to tag a place, item or anything else that can be seen from the IPhone’s camera. Just point the camera to a certain direction then click to add a tag then other users can now see it if they are connected to the network Sekai Camera is using.

The very intriguing new phone is the Android from Google. The first time I heard about this, I really can’t believe that Google is going to create a phone. At first I thought it was just a rumor because Google dominated the web and I thought it wouldn’t step in to mobile phone business. The new Android is going to be released with the HTC Dream G1 phone from HTC. What’s interesting about Android is it is a Linux distribution and it is open source. Any one can download the SDK then develop the applications for Android. Since Android has its own SDK developers can now easily build their own apps with ease. The SDK also allows you to emulate your app as in your in the Android phone. I really can’t wait this phone to be released here in the Philippines and I want to get my hands dirty on it.

These two phones is a really disruptive technology that can dominate the mobile phone industry. Both of it has its own advantages and disadvantages but still it can fit any user needs. All I can say is if you’re not sure what to buy between these two phones choose what really fits your lifestyle and your needs. If you want to have an extremely good user experience it is still up to your own discretion.

Cell Phones have come a long way since they were first developed. First generation cell phones were large, bulky and had almost no battery life. They were usually one line or two line display phones that would use LED’s to display numbers on the screen. Such phones could only be used for phone calls, there was no short messaging service and no internet in these phones. Therefore it was only used by businessmen that always needed to be in contact with the world. But the second and third generation phones changed all that. Cell Phones now have short messaging service, internet and other multimedia features. This lead to the inevitable, the students and younger generation started buying the latest cell phones. Due to its unlimited features cell phones started to be more of a problem for students. Let’s look at those problems in more detail now.

Cell Phones as a Disturbance:

Cell Phones create a lot of distractions and are a source of disturbance during classes. Students that bring cell phones to class and don’t bother to turn off their ring tones can disrupt the teachers’ lectures and disturb others when his or her phone rings. But those students that actually do turn off their ring tones can talk with their friends unnoticed thanks to hands-free devices. Hands-free devices; because they are so small have enabled students to talk to their friends during class without anyone noticing.

Short Messaging Services:

A major drawback of modern cell phones in class is that student’s can text each other during class and miss out on hearing the teacher’s thoughts and opinions. This service can also be used to cheat during tests and exams. Students can message each other formulas and the correct answers in multiple choice questions. They don’t even have to look at the cell phone while writing the message so they can easily get away with such actions.

Cell Phones as a Distraction:

With the advancements in technology mobile games are becoming more and more advanced everyday. Cell Phones games no longer look like those 8 Bit games we used to play back in the nineties. They have really improved and can provide hours of entertainment. But students tend to entertain themselves with these games during class. Students would rather turn the volume low on there handsets and play games rather than listen to the teacher’s lecture. Due to Bluetooth technology, multiple students can connect their handsets wirelessly and play a multiplayer game during classes.

Cell Phone and Privacy Issues:

Modern cell phones come equipped with high quality cameras and people can take pictures as well as videos with their cell phones without anyone knowing. This can give rise to serious privacy issues in some schools.

Most institutions have realized these problems and have banned cell phones altogether on school premises. Students are not allowed to bring cell phones to school and if found their cell phones are confiscated. This is a bold and necessary step as there was no need for cell phones in the past there should be no need for them now. However if some schools cannot implement such strict laws then they should use signal jammers on the school premises. These jam all cell phone signals within their range thus within their range cell phones cannot be used for messaging or for phone calls.

Ringtones are the sounds cell phones make when a person calls the cell phone subscriber and have truly become a phenomenon and the most popular of all mobile accessories. It is interesting how modern technology has considerably advanced from the first types of downloadable ringtones that were available way back when.

The first commercial cell phone with ringtones, the Digital Mova N103 Hyper, sold in May of 1996. It had a just few preset songs in MIDI format, a high quality audio file format. Then in September of 1996, came the first cell phone, the Digital Minimo D319, where a user had the option and could input an original melody for a ringtone, rather than just a few preset songs.

The first downloadable mobile ringtone service was created and delivered in Finland in 1998. A Finnish mobile company started a service called Harmonium that delivered monophonic ringtones. Harmonium was a true innovator because it had tools for both individuals to create monophonics, and a mechanism to deliver them over-the-air via SMS to a mobile handset.

On November 1998, Digitalphone Groupe started the similar service in Japan. Later came polyphonic ringtones that were more advanced than the monophonics because they were able to play about 40 notes at a time and sounded more like the actual song they were playing. Neither of these though was able to truly mimick the songs, and could not play lyrics.

Real music tones, also known as, voice tones, music tones or MP3 tones were first introduced in December 2002, and have revolutionized the downloadable ringtone industry. In contrast to the others, real music tones are actual MP3’s downloaded to a mobile phone as ringtones and so they deliver the true music experience with tones and lyrics.

My Gift to You by Chemistry was the first song to be distributed as a truetone music ringtone. Real music ringtones spread like wildfire, through Europe, Asia and of course the US. It is fascinating how many people have personalized their cell phones with their favorite music tones.

Polyphonic downloadable ringtones are still available today, all though they are not as widely used as real music tones. Polyphonics are mainly used for older cell models as it is mostly newer models that are capable of downloading and playing real music tones.

With the huge advancement in technnology today, anyone with a newer phone model can download their favorite music tones by simply entering their cell phone number into an online order form and get the music instantly downloaded.

And, today, real music downloadable ringtones allow people to get the hottest and latest tracks within any genre of music, including, pop, hip hop, country, rock, jazz and classical and they are available with almost every different mobile phone carriers and many cell phone models.

It is all too common an experience that we have to pay one of our monthly bills and the due date is drawing near. We go to the bank to pay the bill, only to find long queues and realize that you will have to wait in queue for at least an hour before you can pay your bill. But thanks to cell phones, those days are long gone. Technology is supposed to make our lives easier and that is exactly what it is doing with mobile banking. If a subscriber having an account in a bank linked to the subscriber’s network provider then he can enroll for mobile banking and enjoy all the benefits linked to mobile banking.

Balance Inquiry:

It is important that every person knows exactly how much money he has in his bank account. It is important because if the exact amount is not known he may have to face some embarrassing circumstances such as rejection or bouncing of his or her cheque. But if we know the exact amount in our bank account we will never exceed that amount while writing cheques. Before mobile banking a simple task such as balance inquiry was almost impossible as it was impractical for a person to stand in a long queue in banks just to inquire about hi balance. But thanks to mobile banking we can find out the exact amount in our bank at any time no matter where we are.

Purchasing:

As in mobile banking we associate our bank account to our cell phone connection, we have complete access to our credit cards. Purchasing via mobile phones is done from specified stores; these stores will also have to be affiliated with mobile banking. Here our mobile number acts as an account number and a password is used for security purposes. Through mobile banking we can also book and purchase airline tickets directly from our mobile phone. By simply sending text messages to the network provider the subscriber can already make a transaction in less than a minute. These messages are forwarded to the bank’s system and the transaction will be processed. The subscriber then will receive a message alert confirming that a transaction is successfully processed.

Transfer of Funds:

Through mobile banking one subscriber can transfer his money directly to another subscribers account. By using this service he writes the amount he wants transferred from his account and then writes the recipients account number. The funds are then transferred in real time. Meaning the recipient can immediately receive the money without any waiting. This can be done at any time of the day or on any day even if it is a bank holiday. The bank, of course charges a small fee for this service. But it is worth every penny.

Payment of Bills:

At least three bills have to be paid every month, those being, electricity, telephone and natural gas. This means we have to go to the bank thrice a month and wait in queues to pay our bills. But thanks to mobile banking we don’t have to worry about this any more as we can pay our bills at any time directly from our cell phones.