Remember When Your Choices Were Only Black or Beige?

I’ll never forget the first time I made a call from a car. It was 1967 and I was in the car of a friend’s father--a very wealthy executive. Today, you don’t have to be a fat cat to use a portable phone. I carry one in my pocket and, in the last couple of years, I’ve made calls from cars, bicycles, boats, even rides at Disneyland.

Cellular phones are basically two-way radios that communicate with land-based radios, called cell sites, which are connected to the regular phone network. In most cases, you pay a monthly fee and a per-minute charge for using the phone.

Charges vary widely, depending on where you live and what type of service you get, but they can be quite high. Daytime rates are typically about 40 cents a minute, while evening and weekend rates can drop to 20 cents or, in some markets, might even be free.

Air time charges usually apply for both incoming and outgoing calls, and long-distance charges are extra. Using a cellular phone while traveling is even more expensive: You may have to pay “roaming” charges, which are typically about $1 a minute plus any long-distance charges.

You can obtain a mobile phone at cellular phone specialty shops, electronics boutiques, department stores, even some drugstores. Prices vary from free to more than $1,000, a range that is explained by the fact that the real cost (and profit) in the mobile phone industry isn’t the hardware, but the fees associated with using it.

The dealer who signs you up for service gets a piece of the action from the cellular service provider. That includes a sign-up bounty and, in some cases, an ongoing percentage of your bill. These fees make it possible for dealers to hand out free phones to those who are willing to sign one- or two-year contracts.

There’s nothing wrong with the free phones dealers give away. The Motorola 550, Motorola Tel Tac and Nokia 638, which are often free, are rugged and reliable but are a bit heavier, and they lack some of the bells and whistles of high-end phones. And the contract limits your options if you want to change carriers.

What do you get when you pay more for a phone? Mostly, you get phones that are smaller and lighter or have longer battery life. Even the least expensive phones allow you to store frequently called numbers, but they don’t always have an alphanumeric display that lets you assign words to those numbers. Mid-priced phones let you create a database of sorts so you can call someone by selecting his or her name from a list.

The hottest phone on the market today is the Motorola Star Tak, an engineering marvel that’s about the size of a pager and weighs just 3.1 ounces. At a price of $1,200 to $1,500, though, it certainly could weigh on your bank account.

The biggest issue you have to decide is whether to get an analog or a digital phone. If you choose digital, you have even more choices to make.

Analog cellular service has been around for more than a decade. The advantages are that the phones are relatively cheap, and analog service is ubiquitous and standardized. Any analog cellular phone will work with any North American analog cellular service. I’ve used a portable analog phone from cabs in New York, trains in New England and beaches in Hawaii.

Digital service, which is relatively new, offers advantages to both the service provider and, in theory, the end user. Service providers like digital because it’s more efficient--their equipment can handle three to nine times more network traffic in a given amount of air space. In areas where it’s available, you have the option of choosing digital service, and the phone will automatically switch to analog mode if you travel to an area without digital service.

In theory, the quality of the digital call should be better, but this isn’t always the case. I use both digital and analog service in Northern California. When I enter a weak area with my analog phone, I hear static. When the digital signal gets weak, I hear a warbling sound. Both systems will drop your call under certain atmospheric conditions or if you wander too far from a cell site.

Digital service providers can offer additional features such as short messaging (basically paging), caller ID and extended battery life. Some digital phones, for example, now have a large display that can be used to view short text messages. With the extended battery life feature, the phone remains in a very low power mode until you make a call or the phone is “awakened” by an incoming call.

Caller ID displays the number of the person calling--a good idea when you’re paying to receive the call. However, don’t assume you get these features just because you have a digital phone. The services are not available with all digital phones or all digital service providers.

Although there is one standard for analog service (all analog phones work with all analog systems), that’s not the case with digital. There are currently two digital cellular standards: CDMA (code division multiple access) and TDMA (time division multiple access). AirTouch in the Los Angeles area, for example, uses CDMA, while competing LA Cellular uses TDMA.

If you buy a TDMA phone to use with LA Cellular, you won’t be able to use AirTouch’s digital service if you change carriers. Also, you won’t be able to use the digital service from any other non-TDMA cellular company while you travel.

Not all digital phones support advanced services, even where they are available. Some advanced services on TDMA systems require a phone that supports the IS-136 standard. Some existing digital phones, including all current Motorola models, don’t support IS-136. Nokia and Erricson currently have IS-136 models, and Motorola is expected to introduce its IS-136 phone within a few weeks. All CDMA phones can support advanced services, according to AirTouch spokeswoman Amy Damianakes.

If you’re confused by digital cellular, take a deep breath because there are even more choices. Pacific Bell Mobile Services and several other companies are now starting to offer yet another type of mobile service called personal communications services, or PCS.

PCS is very similar to digital cellular, except that it uses a different spectrum of the radio band. Pacific Bell currently provides service only in San Diego but will roll out its network throughout California and Nevada later this year. Pacific Bell customers will be able to use their PCS phones anywhere the company offers service and in other areas served by compatible PCS services, but the phones will not work with regular cellular carriers.

To complicate matters more, there are two types of PCS networks. Pacific Bell, for example, uses GSM (global systems mobile), while other carriers, including PrimeCo and Sprint, use a CDMA technology. Pacific Bell loaned me a phone to use during the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The call quality was very good, but, as with cellular, I experienced dropped calls when I wandered too far away from a land-based site.

When PCS was first mentioned several years ago, it was positioned as a lower-cost alternative to cellular with superior sound and additional features. However, the pricing and services so far are similar to what is available from cellular providers. Pacific Bell Mobile Services San Diego customers pay $19.95 a month for the basic plan, which includes 10 free minutes. Additional air time is 40 cents a minute. There are more economical plans for higher-volume users, but the pricing is comparable to that of cellular service.

The downside to PCS is that there isn’t yet a full national roaming network, as there is with cellular. You can take your cellular phone to any metropolitan area in North America, but it will be a while before PCS services can make such a claim. PCS providers point out that theirs is an all-digital network with advanced features like caller ID, improved security, short messaging and data, but these same features are also available from most digital cellular providers.

One of the promises associated with both PCS and digital cellular is the ability to transmit data. Both are capable, theoretically, of transmitting digital data at up to 14,400 bits per second. But even many analog cellular phones can be connected to a modem with a special cable (starting at about $60), though the quality of the connection can vary greatly. The cost of transmitting data on a cellular phone can be prohibitive, especially if you’re calling from outside your local area and paying roaming charges of $1 a minute.

Regardless of whether you get cellular or analog service, there are a number of features you can add, such as voicemail, three-way calling and call forwarding. Even if these features are added for free, there may be a charge to use them, so check with your provider.

Because you pay for incoming as well as outgoing calls, it’s important to be cautious about giving out your cellular number. Lots of people carry pagers for incoming messages and call people back from a cellular or land-based phone.

You can now get pagers that let users dictate text messages to an operator or send you a short message via e-mail. SkyTel last week introduced the SkyWriter two-way pager with a small virtual keyboard that allows you to respond to pages or send e-mail messages over the Internet.

Another interesting option is the SmartMonitor from SoloPoint (408) 364-8850 or https://www.solopoint.com. If you connect this $200 device to your home or office phone, it will let you use your cellular phone to monitor messages that people are leaving on your home or office answering machine, making your cellular phone something of a remote extension. You pay the air time to listen to the caller leave a message, but get to decide whether to speak to the person.

For links to Web sites with more information about wireless voice and data services, point your Web browser to https://www.larrysworld.com/celluar.html

Lawrence J. Magid can be reached via e-mail at magid@latimes.com. His Web page is at https://www.larrysworld.com

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Profiles of Most Popular Plans

Air Touch Celular

Fees: Starter Plan

-- Startup: $50

-- Monthly access/ Airtime charges: $34.99

-- early termination fee: $150.00

Minutes included in plan: 20

Additional minutes charged during:

-- Peak hours: .49

-- Off-peak hours: .49

Type of service: Analog and digital

LA Cellular

Fees: Economy Plan

-- Startup: $50

-- Monthly access/ Airtime charges: $34.99

-- early termination fee: $100.00

Minutes included in plan: 20

Additional minutes charged during:

-- Peak hours: .79

-- Off-peak hours: .26

Type of service: Analog and digital

MCI One

Fees: Package pricing

-- Startup: $10.00

-- Monthly access/ Airtime charges: $49.95*

-- early termination fee: $200.00

Minutes included in plan: 0

Additional minutes charged during:

-- Peak hours: .43

-- Off-peak hours: .25

Type of service: Analog only now; digital by end of year.

* No added charges for long-distance calls from your home area.

Areas covered: All three serve Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino ad Riverside counties and parts of Ventura County.

Source: Company reports

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Cellular Leaders

AT&T; is also the nation’s leading wireless services provider. Top 10 U.S. cellular telephone companies in 1996, ranked by number of subscribers: AT&T; Wireless: 6.99

Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems: 4.35

Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile: 4.33

GTE Mobilenet: 3.59

BellSouth Cellular: 3.48

AirTouch Communications: 3.32

Ameritech Information Technologies: 2.45

US West: 1.94

360 Communications: 1.87

U.S. Cellular Corp.: 1.04

Sources: Dataquest; Frost & Sullivan

Researched by JENNIFER OLDHAM / Los Angeles Times