RE: sharing cell phones

[Eliot Lim <eliot@u.washington.edu>]

On Mon, 8 Jul 1996 STEADIRIC@aol.com wrote:

> >Well, somebody on the list mentioned that you can go to your local
> >cell-shop and get them to clone one or the other phone. Not kosher and
> >probably illegal, but as long as you don't use both phones at once, you
> >shouldn't have any trouble with functionality.
>
> Here in St. Louis Both Cell Providers will do two phones same number.
> That's what I've got.

it's up to the cellular provider to decide if they want to provide
"extension" service.  a long time ago it was illegal for you to hook up an
extra phone unit in your home and i believe that it took some act of
congress to get that law repealed.  so if one could arbitrarily hook up
extra phones in the home it does make sense that one should also be able
to do the same thing in the cellular world.

unfortunately, the greedy providers here in the seattle area have decided
that if you wanted an "extension" in your car you will have to pay double
(hand-held + car) for it.  it's good 'ol corporate greed, plain and
simple.  the h/w have all the capability to do it, but it's illegal here
to do it.

when i got one of those 1 cent hand held phones i enquired into doing this
extension deal.  i called a cell fone dealer who didn't know the answer,
so he called US West and asked.  the US West person went ballistic and
called the secret service (or it could have been the FBI) and yelled
bloody murder that someone was thinking of stealing service etc etc etc.

anyway, the cell fone dealer got a nasty, threatening phone call from the
thugs (a.k.a. feds) commissioned by these greedy pigs and he passed on the
message that i shouldn't even have considered the idea.  nice, eh?  swine.
i decided to leave the car phone disconnected indefinitely rather than
make these pigs richer.

grrrrrrrrrrr.


eliot