Mobile Phones for Use in Hostile Environments
Mobile phones or cell phones have become ubiquitous to our society in the past decade. Probably, it has become more common not to wear socks than it is to be without a phone. If the twentieth century was the century when movement of goods and people were the driver of progress, clearly the twenty-first will be the century driven by communications.
In the early days of the automobile, breakdowns and flat tires were so commonplace that they were accepted as part of the automobile culture. While over the years, cars have become incredibly reliable and safe to operate, cell phones are just moving out of the horse and buggy stage. The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association claims that a third of the mobile phones in the United States is lost, damaged, or stolen within the first year following purchase.(Esecuritel) The same source indicates that there are over 200 million wireless subscribers, hence over 200 million phones in the United States that has a population of just under 300 million. If those living in nursing homes and going to preschool are omitted, it means that virtually everyone you see is probably carrying a mobile phone.
If one third of those 200 million lose or break their phones it implies a replacement market of about 60 million phones per year. According to another source, about 13 million phones are damaged each year. (CITA the wireless association) That represents just under 25% of the replacement market discussed above. A failure rate of 7-8% of the population of an electronic device is simply not acceptable in this era when we depend on technology as an integral part of almost every one of our activities.
The product will be a typical third generation cell phone capable of performing at least most of the important functions of any current mobile phone relative to acting as a communications device for voice and text messages to Internet...