Last week, while waiting for my flight to Jakarta, I couldn’t help but overhear this guy’s (one-sided) telephone conversation:
(His mobile phone rings and he answers)
Hello?
Ya. (Yes)
Di KL. Baru balik. (In KL. I just got back.)
From that short snippet, I surmised that the guy probably travels a lot, hence the caller asked first if he’s in KL or overseas. Kinda like DH. He travels so often, most people usually ask him that question first whenever they call him. At least, only those people who can’t tell the difference between a roaming ringing tone and a local ringing tone.
Nothing extraordinary about the conversation, right? Yes and no.
These days, most everyone have mobile phones, even children. OnlyGirl’s been bugging me at what age she can have her own. (I haven’t committed anything yet.) Phones have become so affordable, with an original Nokia or Sony Ericcson retailing at RM168 in KL. Prepaid numbers are very easy to purchase, too, with very affordable start-up packages.
So if I’m to think of the abovementioned telephone conversation from today’s point of view, there’s nothing extraordinary about it at all.
But on the other hand, if I’m to think about how things were like in the early 90′s, then that conversation shows how far we’ve come so far in terms of telecommunications.
In the early 90′s, mobile phones were so expensive that very few people had them. They were huge, as well. I remember how I became the envy of my officemates when I bought myself a Motorola flip phone, then one of the hottest and slimmest phones in the market. It had black and white screen, of course, and was quite a brick, by today’s standards. DH got himself a tiny Samsung, which was small enough to put inside his shirt pocket. Unfortunately, due to its size and weight, it fell into a longkang (open drain) one fine day.
When the then telco Emartel (013) was launched, they offered phones at something like RM75 only, as long as you signed up with them for a year or something. Naturally, I quickly grabbed that chance to have my own mobile phone. Never mind if Emartel’s coverage at that time was so bad, there were very few places where I could make or receive calls.
Eventually, I decided to terminate my Emartel account. Had I known that they’d eventually merge with Celcom (019), I would have hung on to my very special number back then (*sigh*).
But even if you possessed a mobile phone back then, overseas travel rendered it useless, as roaming was only introduced later on. I remember how excited I was going through Maxis’ website when they offered roaming services for the first time. True, the countries that were covered at that time were still limited in number, but it was a welcome change from waiting for DH to contact me with his hotel room number, telephone number and fax number everytime he goes overseas.
So, going back to that telephone conversation that I mentioned earlier, I’d say it was pretty extraordinary, if I’m to think about it bearing in mind the events that took place in the 90′s.
These days, we have SMS, MMS, GPRS, 3G, video mail, mobile banking, mobile internet, phones with built-in cameras, MP3/MP4 players and movie players, even phones that act as a virtual fitness coach. The possibilities that lie ahead are only limited by memory chips, flash memory and some other technology yet undiscovered as I write this post. No, no, make that limitless possibilities!
We’ve definitely come a long way, baby.
