Cell phones not just for the rich any more
Not that long ago, but more years ago than we'd like to admit, the Gazette ran a small feature story about one of the first cellular phones in town.
It was an analogue version, of course, and probably of the "bag" variety that rarely left the car of the owner.
Now there are about two billion cell telephones in the world, or more than one for every three people.
Once considered a luxury, cell phones are now almost a necessity, and many are disconnecting their hard-wired phones and going exclusively wireless to save money.
Ironically, many of the poorest among us depend the most on our cellular phones.
That came to light recently when some of the homeless people eating at a Washington D.C. soup kitchen snapped cell-phone photos of first lady Michelle Obama volunteering there.
As one formerly homeless man pointed out to the Washington Post, "A cellphone is the only way you can call to keep up with your food stamps, your housing application, your job." Rommel McBride, 50, said. "When you're living in a shelter or sleeping on the streets, it's your last line of communication with the world."
Advocates for the homeless in the nation's capital estimate 30 to 45 percent of the people they help have cellphones. Others have e-mail accounts and some blog to chronicle their lives on the street -- often using computers in public libraries.
We noticed that the hidden camera show, ABC's "What Would You Do?", after tracking down a homeless woman who behaved admirably in one of its set ups, gave her a prepaid cell phone so it could keep in touch.
The situation is even more true in developing countries, where it is much easier to build a wireless network than to try to build and maintain land lines.
And, in some of those same countries, wireless service providers and banks have reached agreements whereby limited amounts of money can be "wired" via cell phone, making commerce easier for small-time entrepreneurs and customers or workers separated by miles of jungle or desert roads.
Standardizing such a system in the United States, as well as exploiting many other aspects of wireless communications, could not only boost the economy, but could help lift those on the lower rungs of the financial ladder.