Текст 8

Phones in fashion

The necessity of telephones is unquestionable; they have become, especially since the 1950s (nineteen fifties), as essential tool in modern life. One may argue if a real «need» exists for people to use their telephones as often as they do, but can you imagine your life without one at home, or even in your car, or when on holiday in the mountains, for instance? Hardly anybody would give a positive answer to this question.

In recent years mobile phones have become particularly fashionable. Technically called cellular phones, they are one of the great contributions of technology to our lives. Although it has taken a long time to make them available to everybody, it is now clear that they enable us to communicate with the most distant places. Calls can now be made from far away areas of the world thanks to a vast web of microwave transmission towers, antennas, and satellites in space that took years to develop and build.

The most basic car phones in use today allow business people to remain within their offices’ reach, and drivers to travel alone safety. Smaller and lighter models now allow users to take their telephones almost everywhere, including the beach, their weekend home, and even some aeroplanes. Even schoolchildren now have the opportunity to contact their parents or friends over their own mobile phones directly from the school premises. Nowadays, throughout the world, the cellular phone has become a status symbol, without which in some cultures it is assumed that you belong to a «lower class» of «less successful» people. Yet, it is often amusing to hear such «successful» people using their phones to call friends from bars and restaurants when cheaper public pay phones are nearby. It is simply a way of showing off and making oneself look important to others.

Obviously, mobile phones are convenient but this convenience also has its price. Although today’s cellular telephones are much cheaper than the first model available, they still remain more expensive to buy and use than regular telephones.

On average, cellular phone calls are about twice as expensive as those from regular phones and additionally, you have to pay a monthly fee to use your phone. Despite all that, it may not be long before the cellular phone is as basic as a calculator in the lives of many people around the world. (adapted from the World of English)