[mkfarnam]

Cell Phone Info.:

5 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

>1. FIRST Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

>2. SECOND
Have you locked your keys in the car?
Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday.
Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object.
You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!'

>3. THIRD

Hidden Battery Power Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time.

> 4. FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen.
This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.
And Finally....

>5. FIFTH
Free Directory Service for Cells
Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don't have to. Most of us do not carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial: (800) FREE 411, or (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge at all. Program this into your cell phone now.

This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends

Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do - Netlore Archive

[colleeng47]

Originally Posted by mkfarnam

Cell Phone Info.:

5 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

>1. FIRST Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

>2. SECOND
Have you locked your keys in the car?
Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday.
Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object.
You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!'

>3. THIRD

Hidden Battery Power Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time.

> 4. FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen.
This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.
And Finally....

>5. FIFTH
Free Directory Service for Cells
Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don't have to. Most of us do not carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial: (800) FREE 411, or (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge at all. Program this into your cell phone now.

This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends

Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do - Netlore Archive

Great info! Thanks for sharing that

[Jess5]

Thanks mk! Good info. I believe that 800 number for information works on your land phone also. Someone told me this recently after I called 411 and was charged $10.00! For 1 411 call! AT&T!

[karibear]

Originally Posted by mkfarnam

Cell Phone Info.:

5 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

>1. FIRST Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

>2. SECOND
Have you locked your keys in the car?
Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday.
Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object.
You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!'

>3. THIRD

Hidden Battery Power Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time.

> 4. FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen.
This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.
And Finally....

>5. FIFTH
Free Directory Service for Cells
Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don't have to. Most of us do not carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial: (800) FREE 411, or (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge at all. Program this into your cell phone now.

This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends

Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do - Netlore Archive

I don't want to rain on your parade, but that website is urban legends. Go back to it, and read the fine print all around.

[Synopsis]

Originally Posted by karibear

I don't want to rain on your parade, but that website is urban legends. Go back to it, and read the fine print all around.

I have to second that. I worked for Nokia Research and Development for 3 years and all of these things are false.

For one, unlocking your car door is done by the signal from your electronic key, much like a garage door opener, it isn't based on sound therefore it wouldn't work as explained.

There are a whole lot of other errors as well.

Internet user beware!

[Synopsis]

Here are some real codes that can be used on your Nokia mobile phone:

# 3370# This Nokia code activates Enhanced Full Rate Codec (EFR) - Your Nokia cell phone uses the best sound quality but talk time is reduced my approx. 5%
# #3370# Deactivate Enhanced Full Rate Codec (EFR) .
# *#4720# Activate Half Rate Codec - Your phone uses a lower quality sound but you should gain approx 30% more Talk Time.
# *#4720# With this Nokia code you can deactivate the Half Rate Codec.
# *#0000# Displays your phones software version, 1st Line : Software Version, 2nd Line : Software Release Date, 3rd Line : Compression Type .
# *#9999# Phones software version if *#0000# does not work.
# *#06# For checking the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI Number) .
# #pw+1234567890+1# Provider Lock Status. (use the "*" button to obtain the "p,w" and "+" symbols).

[peggydavis]

Rats! I was really interested in the door unlocking feature.

[_redbird_]

I hate cell phones and refuse to buy one.

I wish I had a NOKIA nuclear code to blow up people in their cars who yak yak yak incessantly while driving. It is annoying.
What is so important for people to be talking ALL the time? I see people at walmart with kids and the mother and the kids are fiddling with cell phones.

I think those rants by CG and Synopse are catching! Anti-cellphone extremist! Party of one!

[Voice of GEICO announcer]
RB has ISSUES! And laments the invention of cell phones.

[Synopsis]

Funny redbird, I pretty much hate the things too, even though I spent 5 years working in R&D for Nokia and then Samsung. They are useful tools, but that is all they are to me.

<begin rant>

For one, the darn things are so annoying to talk on, especially when it is mobile to mobile. The delay involved is horrendous and people on both ends of the call end up sounding like Jabba the Hut most of the time. This is because of the processor in the phone. You see, this big fad with "digital technology" being crystal clear (ie. the Sprint commercials) is a HUGE lie promoted by the cell phone carriers.

Remember when there were analog cell phones? They didn't have all of the fancy bells and whistles, but if you used them to talk on they were fantastic; it was just like talking on your home phone because it was essentially the same. No digital processors were involved that downsampled your voice and turned it into bits and bytes.

But, this wasn't profitable enough for the industry. Analog takes up a LOT of bandwidth and so fewer cell-phone users could talk at the same time. The cell phone carriers wanted something that could compress and process signals so more users could talk at the same time, in other words more $$$$.

SO, along comes digital technology. It was always promoted as being crystal clear. What they didn't tell you is that you will get crystal clear mumbo jumbo unless your signal is perfect. Sure, there is no static like you would get with an analog mobile phone that is on the fringes of reception, but what happens is they have "digitized" everything so they could squeeze more and more users into the same amount of bandwidth.

Remember the first digital phones? They were based on a technology called TDMA. TDMA stands for Time Division Multiple Access. In short, if you have a lot of people on one cell at the same time, your signal is divided up and sent through the system by way of sampling portions of your voice/signal; these are then sent through the air at different times. Ever wonder where that delay comes from? There's your explanation.

Then along came CDMA - Code Division Multiple Access. This digitizes and scrambles your signal even more so it can be sent along the airwaves in code and re-sampled at the other end - kind of like the transporter beam on star trek.

Anyway, I know a lot of this is mumbo jumbo, but when I was at Nokia and the first TDMA phones came along, they had everyone brainwashed that this was far superior technology. I ranted and raved that although it was superior technology, it was a step back in quality. Nobody believed me.

Then, one day we had a training class with an audio engieer and I piped up and said, "Please tell everyone here that digital technology means poorer voice quality." He told everyone there that, OF COURSE, it is inferior voice quality because your voice is being sampled and turned into digital bits and reassembled on the other end, whereas analog's conversion to electrical waves was done physically, with the microphone acting as a transducer. I was given some evil looks by everyone in the room who just KNEW that digital was superior.

I realize there is no going back, because what happened needed to happen (analog to digital) because of the sheer volume of people who subscribe to cell phone carriers. But, I wish that people would realize that this digitized garbage is not as good as what they are told and press for better technology than what we have now.

Yes, there is 3G (3rd generation), but that involves adding more bells and whistles and NOT increasing audio quality.

<end of rant>

[Synopsis]

Below is a good representation on how TDMA (which is actually now defunct) uses time shared between users.