Cellular Telephones

Few things are more frustrating than getting the wrong phone number from directory assistance. But one of them is getting the wrong number from directory assistance when you're on a mobile phone. The situation is lose-lose for mobile customers--they pay for the 411 call and for the resulting call to the wrong number. And then they have to call 411 and try again.

If you're like most cellphone users, you probably think you're paying less than 10 cents per minute for calls. Think again. When you do the math, you find the average cellphone customer actually pays more than $3 per minute, according to a report being issued this week by the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a San Diego consumer advocacy group. I got a sneak peek at the report the other day. Researchers arrived at the average $3.

Karl Goetz looked at his Prada-branded cellphone Friday morning and saw a message he had never seen before. "Rejected connection." It was another way of saying his high-end phone was suddenly as useful for making calls as a pair of Prada pumps. But fashion was not to blame. The problem was with the premium cellphone service Voce, which mysteriously shut down Friday.

The teen obsession with yakking, text messaging and ring-tone swapping on cellphones might mean more than a whopping phone bill. For the most crazed, it's a sign of unhappiness and anxiety, according to a new medical study. A survey of 575 South Korean high school students found that the top third of users -- students who used their phones more than 90 times a day -- frequently did so because they were unhappy or bored.

Choosing the best cellphone for foreign travel can be daunting. Is the iPhone the answer? Which BlackBerry -- Bold or Storm? Reliable phones that can be used overseas start at about $80. But beware the add-ons. Also, be sure to consider an "unlocked" phone (that is, one in which the phone's tiny ID card, its SIM card, can be switched out). Then, when traveling overseas, you can replace your U.S. SIM card with a cheaper local one.

The Happiest Place on Earth will soon know where in the world you are. Walt Disney Co. has struck a deal with Verizon Wireless that will allow it to remain in wireless contact with its theme park visitors -- even when they step outside the turnstiles in Anaheim and Orlando, Fla.

Scientist Kwok Chan switches on a cell phone held against a model of a human head and gently lowers a radiation probe into the honey-colored goopy liquid simulating the blood and brain tissue inside a person's skull. Chan's computers in this Federal Communications Commission laboratory then measure how much radiation Americans absorb when they talk on their cell phones.

Amp'd Mobile Inc. got a one-week reprieve Monday but still is expected to shut down its wireless phone service in the U.S. at the end of the month. Yet a rival service, Virgin Mobile USA, is going gangbusters. It announced plans last week to raise $506 million, more than five times what it first sought, in an initial public offering awaiting clearance from securities regulators. Both companies are, in industry terms, mobile virtual network operators.

MetroPCS Communications Inc., which is expected to launch its prepaid cellphone network in Greater Los Angeles later this month, offered Tuesday to buy regional rival Leap Wireless International Inc. in an all-stock transaction worth $5.1 billion. The long-expected combination of San Diego-based Leap and Dallas-based MetroPCS would create a nationwide discount service with 6.2 million customers in 43 markets and wireless licenses in 200 major markets.

It might not be long before the Verizon Wireless pitchman asks: "Can you see me now?" With 89% of U.S. adults signed up for cellphone service, carriers are trying to boost revenue by getting customers to receive more data on their phones -- and nothing contains as much data as video. The big carriers have done little to promote video, in part because most handsets can't show moving pictures. But that may change soon, industry executives said.