The definition of a nerd, it has been said, is someone who has more e-mail addresses than pants.
I have three addresses and three pairs of pants, so I guess I am borderline, using that criterion.
But what does it mean that I have seven phone numbers? There is my home landline, my office landline, my cell phone, a Google Voice phone number and three other Internet-connected phone numbers.
That’s 70 digits to manage — yet I rarely talk on the phone and always try to avoid answering one.
I may well be a nerd, but there is a reason for all those numbers. Like a lot of other people, I’ve been searching for new ways to communicate as the phone system that has served us well for more than 130 years morphs into another, still uncertain form.
Fewer people have landlines. A quarter of American homes use only cell phones. We are talking less and texting more. And as we use more data on cell phones that are really hand-held computers, we must search for alternative networks, usually Wi-Fi, to bypass a strained cell phone network.
All of those phone numbers, then, are the residue of my experiments to find a system not only to stay in touch, but also to find one, or two, reliable ways that people can use to contact me. The multiple numbers parallel the numerous text- and instant-messaging systems I use, like Google Chat, Twitter, Facebook and AIM.
It’s not just consumers who are using the phone system differently. The phone companies are way ahead of us — and couldn’t be happier that consumers are shifting to texting. The economics are clearly in the companies’ favor.
Text messages take up very little space — about 140 bytes, as they are being transmitted. That’s really why text messages are kept short. The cell phone companies charge about 20 cents a text message.
At the same time, cell phone companies charge roughly 15 cents a megabyte in an unlimited data plan — data in this case meaning Web surfing, streaming music or video or sending e-mail. To explain why there is such a big difference, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, the two largest wireless carriers, say that text messages travel on a voice network and data on a separate data network — and that I am comparing apples and oranges.
But industry analysts say the phone companies are facing problems that will hasten the shift to Internet calling. The revenue from voice calls is falling, and revenue from text messaging will flatten, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley.
