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At one time, the cellular phone was truly a distinctive symbol of geek chic (or Hollywood hustle). Back when airtime was expensive and phones were more cumbersome, you really needed a good excuse to go wireless. Now, as minimum monthly rates drop, and the one cent phone proliferates, every soccer mom in America has a phone in her glove box in case she gets a flat. This is all well and good, but at the same time, it raises the bar for the folks who absolutely must be on the bleeding edge of connectivity. Let's face it, that freebie Motorola flip phone just doesn't cut it any more. Fortunately, a new cellular standard offers the opportunity for one to separate him or herself from the hoi polloi of analog grunts. CDMA is a new digital cellular technology that enables its users to enjoy high sound quality, and provides much greater traffic capacity to cellular providers. Interestingly, the technologies that underpin CDMA have been in use by the U.S. Military since World War II, mainly because they are difficult to jam and intercept. Thus, one of the side benefits of the new CDMA phones is that they are virtually impossible to clone or listen in on. One of the first CDMA phones available is the Qualcomm QCP-1900. The QCP-1900 is a beauty. In addition to nice tactile keys, a good sized display, and a nifty sliding earpiece, it is small enough to fit in your pocket, and weighs about 9 ounces. The phone's battery life is unprecedented in the analog world; its two days of standby time, or four hours of talk time liberate you from the cigarette lighter in your car and having a charger on your desk all the time. Some techie features include text-based messaging (usually an extra cost item from your cellular provider), a 99-item phone book that interfaces with the phone's caller ID support (when someone from your phone book calls, their name appears instead of their number), and call history. The phone also displays the time and date as long as you're within calling range, and lets you know how many voice mail messages you have waiting. Unlike some phones, rather than including a built-in digital answering machine, the phone relies on the cellular service to provide voice mail. When you miss a call, or you have the phone turned off, the caller is redirected to your voice mail box. If the caller leaves a message, your phone beeps to indicate that you received a call (much like a pager). While the phone's size, looks, and technological frills are interesting, the best thing about the phone is that, thanks to the fact that it uses CDMA digital service, the sound quality is outstanding. The difference between a CDMA digital phone and an analog cellular phone is remarkable. Because CDMA provides a huge increase in infrastructure capacity over analog, airtime prices for CDMA subscribers are low. For example, when I lived in Houston, my cellular plan with PrimeCo provided 250 minutes of airtime per month for $34.95. Per minute charges were along the lines of a quarter per minute, once I exceeded the time that was included with the plan. When I travelled to other cities in the PrimeCo network, there were no roaming charges, and other perks included free voice mail, free caller ID, and no charge for the first minute of incoming calls. Unfortunately, there are a number of drawbacks to signing on with a CDMA-based PCS provider. Because the technology has only recently been implemented, in most areas coverage is marginal. If you plan on taking your QCP-1900 out past the 'burbs, chances are you won't get a signal. And, while CDMA is spreading rapidly, there are still plenty of areas where it isn't available at all. One factor that's slowing nationwide implementation of a CDMA network is the large debt owed by cellular providers to the U. S. Government for the right to the PCS spectrum. One interim solution offered by Qualcomm is the sister phone to the QCP-1900, the QCP-800, which automatically switches to analog communications if it loses its CDMA signal. Even as new CDMA-only providers like PrimeCo work to build out their infrastructure, existing telecom players like the baby Bells and Sprint, are deploying CDMA networks of their own (the last time I checked, Sprint had rolled out their CDMA PCS service in 134 markets). So, if you're looking to carry a cellphone that all your friends will envy (even the ones with those pesky Motorola StarTACs), without the technology risks that usually accompany a leap into an early adopter market, check out the QCP-1900. - Rafe Colburn [1/23/98]
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