Identification

• Cellular wireless phones offer full communications over long ranges by the use of the public switched telephone network or PSTN, and hand off during phone calls from base station to base station as the user moves. These type of phones are very different than cordless phones, which are also wireless but openly allow a user a limited range, such as room to room within a home or office through a fixed ground line.
  
  

History

• The first patent for a wireless phone was issued in 1908 in the United States to Nathan B. Stubblefield of Murray, Kentucky. His patent was applied to radio phones and was very different than what the term cellular wireless means today. Mobile phone base station cells were invented in 1947 and further developed by Bell Labs engineers at AT&T. Since then, further advancements and patents were introduced to have what is known today as cellular wireless.
  
  

Function

• Cellular wireless phones are very important to the fast moving world of users in the modern times. These phones provide the capabilities for business men and women to stay in touch with important clients at all times and are also useful to the average citizen for emergency times, such as a vehicle malfunction. The phones today are equipped with the capabilities to search the Internet, take photos, send text messages, play music (MP3) as well as personalization features such as ringtones or games.
  
  

Theories/Speculation

• Health risks might potentially be associated with cellular wireless phones. Concerns about the electromagnetic radiation that these phones emit have been linked to a probable cause of cancer. Currently, however, the scientific and medical field have said that health problems are unlikely to be caused by the phones or the base stations.
  
  

Considerations:

• Privacy issues have raised some concerns with the use of cellular wireless phones. The phones can be used for surveillance by government or law enforcement agencies. These agencies have the capabilities to turn on the microphones in cell phones to listen to conversations that are taking place in the vicinity. These phones also can collect data about the location of the user by using multilateration to calculate the time for a signal to travel from cell towers to the phones, to pinpoint the exact location of the phone.
  
  

Expert Insight

• The capacitors in cellular wireless phones are very high quality and contain tantalum. The major source of tantalum is cotton ore. This ore is mined illegally in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in mines that are operated by rebel groups in order to fund their civil war. However, there is a conflict-free source for tantalum in the mines at Wodgina, in the Pilbara region of Australia.