The wonder of cell phones

[Roy Hersh]

5 Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do

For all the folks with cell phones in the USA. (This should be printed and kept in your car, purse, and wallet. Good information to have with you.)


There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.

Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency
tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

FIRST
Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find
Yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an Emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to Establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly, this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

SECOND
Have you locked your keys in the car?
Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy
someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys
In the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on
their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot
From your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock
button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will
unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked Our car over a cell phone!'

THIRD
Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370#. Your cell phone will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell phone next time.

FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following
Digits on your phone: *#06#. A 15-digit code will appear on the
screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe.

When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider
and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset
so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally
useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.


And Finally....

FIFTH
Free Directory Service for Cells

Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for
411 information calls when they don't have to. Most of us do not
carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation
even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information
option, simply dial: (800)FREE411, or (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge at all. Program this into your cell phone now.

[Moses Botbol]

Fromhttp://www.snopes.com

1. Calling 112 on your cell phone will (in some parts of the world, primarily Europe) connect you to local emergency services, even if you are outside your provider's service area (i.e., even if you are not authorized to relay signals through the cell tower that handles your call), and many cell phones allow the user to place 112 calls even if the phone lacks a SIM card or its keypad is locked. However, the 112 number does not have (as is sometimes claimed) special properties that enable callers to use it in areas where all cellular signals are blocked (or otherwise unavailable).

2. Cars with remote keyless entry (RKE) systems cannot be unlocked by relaying a key fob transmitter signal via a cellular telephone. RKE systems and cell phones utilize different types of signals and transmit them at different frequencies.

3. The claim that pressing the sequence will unleash "hidden battery power" in a cell phone seems to be a misunderstanding of an option available on some brands of cell phone (such as Nokia) for Half Rate Codec, which provides about 30% more talk time on a battery charge at the expense of lower sound quality.

[Glenn E.]

1) 112 is the International equivalent of 911 and really has nothing to do with mobile phones. Most mobile phones recognize it as an emergency number, though, even if they're designed for the US. The ability of 112/911 to be dialed even when a phone lacks a SIM card (or is unactivated) is crucial, and is used by many charity organizations to provide emergency use only phones to people who could not otherwise afford a cell phone. When you donate your old cell phone to charity, this is often how it ends up being used.

2) Doesn't work anymore even if it ever did, which is suspect anyway because they tell you to hold your phone near the car door. The receiver for the RKE radio in your car is never in the door where it would take constant shock abuse from opening and closing. It's more normally in the engine compartment along with the rest of the car's electronics. Besides, even if the RKE systems on cars used a signal that could be effectively reproduced by a speaker, do you really think that your cell phone's TOTALLY OUTSTANDING audio quality would be able to reproduce it accurately enough to unlock your car?

3) What Moses said. IIRC that half-rate codec was only available on Nokia's old TDMA handsets, too, which are no longer supported by any carrier.

4) That particular code that they're telling you to enter into your phone is device specific (and looks like it was probably also an old Nokia code to me). However, the number that is returned is real and easy to find. It's called the IMEI and can usually be found on a label under the phone's battery. Note that only GSM phones (used by AT&T and T-Mobile in the US) have IMEI numbers. CDMA phones (Verizon, Sprint) have the same capability to be identified, but they use a different system.

5) There are several "free" 411 services... 1-800-FREE411 is just one of them. However they're only "free" in the sense that you don't have to pay any money for them. Most of them get around this by selling advertising, and in order to use the service after some number of actually free uses you have to listen to a 15-second (some longer, some shorter) advertisement. Still, that's probably worth it for most people, and the service is nice to have available.

[Derek T.]

On number 2 - even if this did work all it would do is open the door. You still need the key to start the engine unless you have one of the few cars on the road that have keyless ignition

[Roy Hersh]

Assuming the key was left or locked in the car, in the ignition ... that may not be such a stretch.

[Derek T.]

Assuming the key was left or locked in the car, in the ignition ... that may not be such a stretch.

My new company car (Jaguar XF) should be arriving within the next 4 weeks. It has a fancy gizzmo that knows when you have locked your keys in the car. As you walk away it beeps at you and opens the doors and the trunk so that you can get the key out. Cool

[Luc Gauthier]

I don't own a cell phone . :?