Don't get it... don't get it.... don't get it

The honourable newspaper the New York Times the other day published an article that I found somewhat interesting.

The article (registratiation required) can be construed to help readers understand how Americans think about mobile phone use.

For those of my honoured readers not having or caring to get access to the NY Times website, I'll quote the parts of the article that I find especially amusing and telling.

The articles brings the idea that modern mobile phones aren't as good as old ones when it comes to reception. This is because of the internal antennas that a lot of mobile phones these days sport.

The first quote concerns what phones should be used for:
"Not only is reception a lot poorer, but the phones eat up battery life, so there's less talk time," said Michael King, a mobile data analyst with Gartner, a market research group. Games are nice, but "the majority of the time, we're talking on these things," Mr. King said. "If they can't do that well, what's the point really?"

Mobile phones these days have a lot of added features, and if users don't care about these, they wouldn't go out and buy a new phone. Yet, they do. Disregarding other uses than talking ignores the fact that sales volume is steadily high.

The article then goes on debating forth and back about external vs. internal antennas. The first tend to break off, while the other - so the article - gives worse reception. One network is quoted having this policy:

'Jim Jerace, a spokesman for Verizon, which has 30 million subscribers, said the company required makers of handsets for its network "to pass a certain level of performance before they are certified, and one requirement is they have an antenna that is capable of going up." '

This is indeed interesting. Why is this important to Verizon?

Is it because they want the user to have the best reception at all times and think that a pull-out antenna helps with this? If so, why does the network not improve on its own network instead of demanding pull-out antennas? When reading the above statement, one thinks that it is what is best for Verizon, not its customers, that get approved by the company. May I suggest that they put the customer first and design their network around the user instead of designing the user around their network.

This argument is also based on the assumption that external antennas are better than internal. This article is the first that I see stating this. Whether the above is true or not, I altogether think the article shows some interesting thoughts about mobile phone use.

The author works for a mobile phone company making phones with internal antennas. The views expressed here are his own and not necessarily those of the company in which he is employed.