In
Britain and many other countries, the name for what
in
north America is referred to as a
cellular phone.
Incidentally,
Europe and
Asia are
light-years ahead of
North America when it
comes to mobile/cellular phone usage. Example: as of May 2000, in
Britain,
Finland,
Sweden and
Italy over half of all
adults own
a mobile phone. And the entire
continent works on the
GSM standard,
I think analogue phones were
phased out over five years ago.
As another brief example of how ubiquitous these things are in the UK,
most primary (elementary) schools
in Britain have had to ban them due to their incessant ringing
irritating the teachers. And the shelves of Toys 'R' Us over here
are lined with Nokias, Ericssons and Motorolas.
December 12, 2000: An update to the statistics above: after the
forthcoming round of gift-buying for Christmas it is expected that
two-thirds of Britons will own a mobile phone. Note that's 2/3 of the
entire population, not just adults. And apparently we're texting
each other nearly a billion times a month, too...