Disposable Cell Phones Arrive

headGasket writes "After the disposable cameras, here comes the disposable cell phones. Ideal for trash talk. Seriously, there is a $5 incentive to not dispose of it in the trash and bring it back for a rebate on the next one." These seem like a nice alternative to being locked into a lengthy contract, or for people who only need a cell phone for a short period of time.

Reception

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine with disposable-grade aerial setups you would get weak reception? If I have to jump into an 80's time warp to get equal reception i'm out :)

Now if we could just...

[Freaek]

get that global communications network up & running, these things would be great.

Going on holiday to BumFuckEgypt? No worries, buy a phone there. What, didn't use all your credit? Sweet, bring it on home and finish it there.

Ooooh, this will be great for Shane Warne, he can SMS chicks without getting found out now :)

Oops!

[Shonufftheshogun]

I could see the 911 button being a nightmare for the 911 call center; it's centered right between the "send" and the "end" button.

Repost? Are these things EVER coming out?

[iamhassi]

Disposable Cell Phones have been on slashdot [slashdot.org] many [slashdot.org] times before [slashdot.org], and isn't Hop-On the same company cited for repackaging $200 Nokia's and calling them "Hop-On" phones [geek.com] 18 months ago? I still haven't seen Hop-On phones in retail stores years after they were first announced, and I have a feeling I won't see them for many more years. Might as well start advertising disposable computers too, since I'm sure we'll see those in the next 10 years... probably before the disposable cellphone.

This seems rather unnecessary.

[Colm Buckley]

Making the entire phone disposable seems to me to be rather wasteful and, well, environmentally-unfriendly. The requirement which this phone purports to address seems to me to be already catered-for by the "pay as you go" model.

Here (Ireland), for example, you can get a decent phone (with no account) for about 100 euro, and then buy call-cards for 10, 20, 50 euro etc. worth of credit. These have a PIN which you use to top-up your account. As an alternative to the "pay monthly" type of account with invoices, it works very well; they're used particularly by teenagers etc. There's no account, nor are one's personal details given to the phone operators.

Prepaid SIM cards

[haggar]

Why not just use prepaid SIM cards? That's what we have here in Finland. You get a prepaid SIM card and presto, you get to talk or receive calls. Once the allocated talktime has been exceeded, you just buy a code and "recharge" the prepaid SIM card. Or just buy a new prepaid SIM. SIM cards are small and made of non-toxic material. A much better idea for the environment, and I'd say it's much nicer, as you have YOUR choice of mobile phone.

Been covered before...

[muffen]

...on Slashdot [slashdot.org]

It's actually kinda amusing reading the comments from that last article about disposable cellphones. Many people though it'd never happen, and now, here it is :)

Re:Great for tourists

[GodEater]

Most phones on sale in Europe this days are now tri-band - so they support 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz. I've personally been able to use my last three phones in both Europe and the USA without any problems...

doesn't happen

[Anonymous Coward]

In Michigan, we've got a 10 cent deposit on all beverage containers. The stores have Tomra can acceptors that read and squash the cans and print out a receipt that's good at the checkout.

People que up with a bag of empty beer cans to get their deposit back. With practice, you can get the machine to accept 6 cans a minute.

Re:Analysis

[heironymouscoward]

In any case, huge numbers of discarded GSMs are already being sold in Africa at fairly low prices. Here in Belgium most GSM shops let you trade or abandon your old phone when you upgrade, and these phones turn up in the markets in Lagos, Kinshassa, Kigali, Entebbe and so on.
In today's world, there is very little that is actually truly "disposable".

Re:Oops!

[digitalunity]

Actually, that's a good place to put the button. The fact that it is labeled as such will mean that most people will intentionally avoid that button. One of the ways they can 'recycle' this phone is by giving them to prostitutes. No, this isn't a troll.

Almost all major metropolitan cities in America have a program where unneeded cell phones are given to prostitutes to use in emergencies. Federal law says that all cellular phones have the ability to make an emergency call to 911 regardless of account status. I've read about cell phone recycling centers for phones in Portland, LA, Seattle and San Francisco. I'm sure there are many others out there.

Re:911?

[gibbonboy]

While it is law (in the US, anyway) that all cell phones, even un-initialized handsets, must be able to access 911, these unidentifiable phones are a burden on the emergency system. Several localities have given them to the elderly and battered women, and I believe AAA will sell you a phone cheap, the only button on the phone is a big, round, "911" button. People don't realize that with Phase I and II wireless around the corner, these throw-away phones could represent a false sense of security. The wireless carriers have fought tooth and nail to avoid installing Phase II equipment, even though the per-chip cost for gps units is now under 4 dollars. At present, less than 50 911 centers in the US can handle a Phase II wireless call, more can do Phase I, which is just having a callback number. And the stupid (and I mean stupid) 911 button on these phones will mean swamping 911 centers with "butt-dialling" 911 calls, because I don't see a "keylock" button anywhere.

MOD PARENT UP just a little further please

[Jesrad]

All we know about human behaviour, and I mean the non-rational part of us, the part which has sentiments and some morality and/or some sense of ownership or territorial defence, well this part is the one that makes us cling to everything we own, makes us attached to that old pair of shoes, makes us feel affection for that old beige box on the desktop.

That's why we'll see more customization kits, swappable cases and GUI skins for portable phones, and disposable phones will probably fail.

Hop-Off

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like the only thing disposable is the company.

According to stockpatrol [stockpatrol.com], the former CEO was arrested for defrauding investors.

Their 2002 Audited Financials [hop-on.com], shows over 98 MILLION shares and lifetime sales of just $4,283 (at an expense of $29,576). The company has moved from online gambling (1998-2000), to DSL provider (2000), to wireless phones(2001-). The audit claims: "[...] the Company has sustained operating losses and expects such losses to continue to the forseeable future. The Company has not generated any significant revenues or product sales [...]". It also mentions that the company currently has two lawsuits against it for unpaid fees.

Re:Someone please explain this to me...

[ponxx]

> I have worked and lived in several countries in Eueope, and everywhere, recycling and safe
> storage of old batteries was top issue. Batteries are VERY toxic.

You've obviously not spent much time in the UK, but I agree with regards to most other european countries...

It's not only batteries, but also paper, plastic, glass, metal ... in many areas of germany for example each household has 3 or 4 different bins that get collected on different days/weeks.

When I arrived in america for the first time, I bought a (glass) bottle of water at the airport, and once i had drunk it returned it to the place that had sold it to me (cafe type thing) assuming they would recycle it in some way. The woman just gave me a very strange look and dropped the bottle in the bin right in front of me...

I have no idea of the actual environmental impact of recycling as compared to driving, air conditioning, heating insulation, toxic waste, lack of filters in power plants etc. etc. but there certainly seems to be a very different mindset about it in western europe.

ponxx

Re:Someone please explain this to me...

[Spruitje]

I have worked and lived in several countries in Eueope, and everywhere, recycling and safe storage of old batteries was top issue. Batteries are VERY toxic.


Well, since most vendors switched from nicad rechargeable batteries to nimh it isn't such an issue anymore.
Second, even modern alkaline batteries don't contain mercury anymore.
And if you want to get rid of old batteries you can drop them at most shops.
don't forget that recycling is a big market in Europe.
There is a lot of money in recycling.

That and pre-paid SIM cards

[forged]

Excellent post, I will second that.

A low-tech alternative to throw-away phones is to simply buy a pre-paid SIM card from a local operator early in your trip, and to use that to make local calls & stay in touch with the family.

I was in India last week and the network coverage of all major operators was excellent in towns and around urban/touristic areas. The SIM card only cost me Rs.300/- ($6) and included 30 minutes of talk time to Indian phone numbers, and allowed my friends and relatives to call that number. And you don't pay huge roaming fees for receiving calls.

Suspicious company

[Zouden]

I thought that logo looked similar. There was a company called Hop-On in Australia a few years ago that supposedly was going to offer free internet access (offset by advertising). The company disappeared before it started connecting users, AFAIK. The website (www.hopon.com.au) is dead but the internet archive has a copy [archive.org]. That's obviously the same logo.

Re:Oops!

[Fermier de Pomme de]

Unless the keypad locks (and most people I know don't even use that feature on the mobiles they own), 911 operators can look forward to many calls originating from pockets, backpacks and purses.

Dream on

[jyoull]

Go ahead, try to buy one! You can't. Offer them some investment money... they'll take it!

Did nobody notice that all images of the "phone" are virtual mockups?

How many promos/how much hype for this have I seen in the past three years?

Hmm, BusinessWeek mag was persuadade that they were available back in 1999 and claimed to have tested one. [businessweek.com]

It was later shown (by opening the case) that Hop-On's "disposable phones" were really Nokia phones with their own plastic casing put around them. ... and costing WAY more than $30 for the parts.

There were some delays admitted-to [stockpatrol.com] long after the 1999 "demo", in June 2002

There was a bit of a problem [stockpatrol.com] with a Universal Studios tie-in back in 2001:
"In November 2001, Hop-On announced that it would partner with Universal Studios Home Video to give away a limited number of the disposable phone to purchasers of the "Jurassic Park III" DVD/ home video. The "winners" would get a free Hop-On phone if their copy of the video contained a special coupon. The promotion was cancelled when Hop-On failed to deliver the phones... Universal has advised Stock Patrol that it is sending all of those winners - about 1000 in all - $30 checks (the supposed cost of a Hop-On phone) and a free DVD. "

See also http://www.wirelessreview.com/ar/wireless_cutting_ room_floor_2/ [wirelessreview.com]

and oh, oopsie!!!!
Disposable Cell Phone Company Hop-On Wireless CEO Indicted For Fraud [techdirt.com] (April 18, 2003 -- for ANOTHER venture of his, not Hop On, but it looks like a familiar tale)

Last year we had the story of how it looked like disposable cell phone company Hop-On Wireless was a scam. Since then, I've seen the company highly touted in many news stories, talking about how it was this great invention... but which no one seemed to be selling. Now, the CEO of Hop-On has been arrested for fraud, relating to work he did on an earlier company - but which brings up many parallels to Hop-On. The earlier company was an online gambling site, which he raised a lot of money for. However, they did so by showing software that was really someone else's software "cosmetically altered" to look like their own. Hop-On's "disposable phones" were really Nokia phones with their own plastic casing put around them.

From the hop-on website: [hop-on.com]
Q. When will I be able to buy the Hop-on phone?
A. The release date of our Hop-on phone is contingent on a variety of factors. We are doing everything we can to get our phones into the hands of all those who want and need them as soon as possible. If you like, you can e-mail us your contact information, and we'll let you know as soon as our phone is available in your area.

$40 for 1 hour talk time.

[Anonymous Coward]

$40 dollars is alot for a throw-away phone that only allows you to talk for one hour [hop-on.com].

Re:Great for tourists

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't beliee this story is on slashdot.. again..

I worked for a company that MADE some of the Hop-On phones, and I can attest to how big of a scammer this guy really is. He's being investigated for fraud related to a series of bogus internet gambling sites (do a google search for Peter Michaels and hop-on). He's stepped down as the CEO of Hop-On, but it doesn't change the fact that it's vapour.

As for the phones. I've extensively used the CDMA version, and I can assure you that it is NOT vapour. It works suprisingly well, and could be viable. Problem is that Hop-On will NEVER get any of these phones. They cheated the company out of approximately half a million dollars in funding, and as a result this company is now witholding the rights to the design.

Other reasons you won't see this phone in the US:

-There is no GSM version that I am aware of. The GSM phones that were shown to investors were just butchered Nokias that fit into the casing.

-The CDMA version does not have the ability to report location information. It is a requirement for all new phones in the US to be able to report this info.

Re:Great for tourists

[MyFourthAccount]

So true.

Just a couple of signs of a company going down:
- pretending something is a real product, when all they have is a rendered image
- a new years message written 13th of January still being on the front page, in November, from a guy that has now been arrested.

I don't know what it is that the same shit keeps coming up on /. but this is just silly. There's nothing new to report, and a quick look at the home page would suggest a company that's in the shit.

Just an other toop doop tee du-dupe.