BrianJBecker.com

Since the land-based telephone system here is nearly non-existent, the cell phone business is in full swing.  There are two competing companies that are all over town.  VodaCom offers their signature color of blue paint to seemingly anybody who will take it.  Even the airport is Voda-Blue and says VodaCom across both the front and the back of the building.  Celtel favors a striking red tint and they are actively working to paint the town red.  There are also billboards plastered around town promoting the two companies.  Until recently most advertising showed upwardly mobile Congolese businessmen and women in haute couture.  VodaCom’s new advertising campaign shows a man working down in a pit mining diamonds with a cell phone to one ear and his free hand clenched in a fist raised to the sky.  He must have just set down his pickaxe to answer the call.  Maybe his wife just told him she’s serving his favorite meal tonight.

Perhaps because it costs money to check voicemail here, people don’t use it.  All African cell phones that I’ve seen are on a prepaid system.  You buy little cards and then you enter a pin number from the card into the phone.  I had a prepay phone similar to this in the states, but I paid for every call incoming or outgoing.  Here you only pay for calls that you make, not calls that you receive.  So if the phone rings – you pick it up.  Minutes aren’t cheap so you don’t want to be compelled to call that person back.  Hey, they are paying!  I was in a meeting at the United Nations yesterday and people’s phones kept ringing, playing everything from Pat Benatar to the 1812 Overture.  Then someone slides back from the table, pops up and steps into the next room with a phone on their ear.

Sometimes people will “beep”, meaning that they call you and before you can answer they hang up.  That way they’ve let you know that they need to speak with you but not enough to pay for it and they are hoping that you will call them back and foot the bill.  …If you call them back.

Some months ago I was listening to a panel of local development leaders from three continents speak at Point Loma.  People’s phones kept going off and disrupting the speeches.  I decided then that a law should be passed requiring everyone’s cell phone to loudly pronounce the owner’s full name.  After three or four times reading the person’s legal name it would go into a brief telling of the owner’s most embarrassing moment.  I think that might prevent loud cell phone disruptions in meetings, church, libraries, etc.

I’ve read recently that the FAA is considering allowing cell phone usage on airliners.  The cell phone companies would expand their coverage area to cover everything up to 40,000 feet.  I pray that this will never happen.  This job I’ve got requires long airplane journeys.  The only thing I can think of that would be worse than someone sitting next to me telling me their life story for eight hours would be that same person telling it to someone else on the phone.

There’s a guy in New England somewhere who has gotten the idea to try to sell advertising space on the roofs of people’s homes and businesses.  He knows that Google satellite maps are popular and that eventually these ads would be frequently viewed online.  They would also be visible from aircraft.  It’s probably a selling point in his scheme.  This guy is an average citizen and now he’s brokering deals to try to make this happen.

I recently took a midday flight on a small commuter jet from Pensacola to Tampa.  No one was talking on the phone, I didn’t even here one ring –the cabin was peaceful.   The white sands and emerald blue water were spectacularly pure and beautiful from 30,000 feet.