Time to return to a plain, old dumb phone

I’ve carried a so-called “smart phone” for about 15 years, beginning with a Blackberry in the 1990s to my current Droid.

But Verizon’s increasingly-expensive and restrictive services bring thoughts of the good old days when one used a phone for one, simple purpose: making and receiving phone calls.

Smart phones are clunky, difficult to use as a phone, and increasingly complex. All I — or most of us — probably need is a simple phone with actual buttons for the number keypad. Something that flips open and lets you talk with the person on the other end.

I can live without email on my phone and I don’t need to surf the web in restaurants or meetings and I sure as hell don’t need to be trying to negotiate the menus of such an instrument while driving.

So I’m looking at an inexpensive TracFone with pay-as-you go service.

Verizon, care you hear now?

You can’t?

Serves you right.

DOUG THOMPSON

Long-time newspaperman, photographer, and videographer who sold his first news photo more than 60 years ago, still writes and shoots photos for Lee Enterprises newspapers, provides TV news for local stations/networks, and produces documentaries. He is also the founder and publisher of Capitol Hill Blue, the oldest political news channel on the Internet, and owns Blue Ridge Muse, a hyperlocal website in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwestern Virginia. A member of the National Press Photographers Association, Thompson also owns Blue Ridge Photography, LLC.

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2 thoughts on “Time to return to a plain, old dumb phone”

Earle Fowler

August 19, 2012 at 9:03 am

I’m headed in the same direction as soon as my contract expires. After 20+ years, goodbye Verizon. If you haven’t heard me yet, you never will.
Jim Stoll

August 19, 2012 at 9:33 pm

I have no particular axe to grind with Verizon. My first cell phone was Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) and was fix-mounted to the vehicle. Cell phones have evolved far past their level of usefulness. I seldom have any need to text but hate trying to text something from a number pad. A cell phone is not supposed to be a stand-alone computer with applications for everything from making a phone call to solving astrophysics equations. I am a firm believer in what is called POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) an instrument with a wire to the phone line. Chances are when there is an emergency (9/11 was a perfect example) the cellular circuits were the first to go. In a storm, chances are when your electric is gone, you still have a phone line.

Verizon keeps calling me to inform me that I eligible for new telephones. I DON’T WANT a new telephone with applications I will never use. I just want to make phone calls.

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