When I think of cell phones, I think of cell phones, wireless service, phone calls, car chargers, headsets, and camera phones.
But now there’s one more thing you can associate with cell phones: TV shows. That’s right. According to this article, not only will some service providers start providing various stations on their phones, but some already have! Verizon will start showing CBS, MTV, NBC and Fox programming on phones as of March 31st. Sprint already has a video service and news clips available, and AT&T offers some video packages. Some other providers – Comcast, Time Warner, Cox Communications & Advanced Newhouse – will offer a cable TV guide and some video content on their phone. Comcast customers (when did Comcast offer cell phones?!?!) can get the guide for $15/month. Or for $25/month get not only the guide but also video content and e-mail and internet access.
Right off the bat, I’m thinking, “Okay, this is cool”. But then, maybe not. Television shows would be just one more distraction for cell phone users who should not be using their cell phone. I can see it now… someone is stuck in traffic and decides to watch a missed episode of American Idol. They’re not paying attention to the traffic around them, and they accelerate when in fact they should be braking.
Or kids in schools messing around with phones even more…
Plus, the article itself brought up another good point. Many wireless carriers would not be able to broadcast this kind of heavy broadband content without overloading their 3G networks.
That, more than anything else, concerns me. I would be highly pissed off if I could not make a phone call because some silly twit was watching a sitcom.
So, in summary, while I think this kind of feature for cell phones could be neat, I also think that perhaps it’s too much. Whatever happened to the days when a cell phone was just that – a cell phone?
This is a sponsored post.
