Kerslyn’s Comfort Zone

Gone are the days when we have to climb up on a tree just to send SMS or make a call in our hometown. When cellular phones are making its way to the market and telecom companies are only starting business for mobile phones, it was really hard for people in the province to get a good signal. It was 10 years ago when people started going crazy over cellular phones even if their location is a dead spot – which means no signal at all. They have to go to a certain place be it in the middle of the rice field, along the highway, at a rooftop of a building or even climb a tree for them to use their cellular phones. In areas where cellular phones’  signal strength is good enough, people are lining up and you can see them raising their phones up in the air to send a message. Funny as it may seem but it’s the only way. Glad that in our house, our cellular phones can pick up even just 1 bar of a signal. But the phone must stay in that place and never be moved or else the signal will be gone. If Ace calls, I’m stuck in one position and stay there until we finished  talking. There are 4 spots in our old home where we usually put mine and Carol’s mobile phones – on top of the fridge (the phone must be facing the front door), at our study table in the living area, on top of our dresser, and in our bed. Other areas are dead spot but if we want a real good signal we climb up the guava tree in the front yard. After a year or two, telecom companies have put up cell sites in our town that people went more crazy about cellular phones that even little kids own one.

At the start of the cellular phones era, only two telecommunications company – Smart Communications and Globe Telecom monopolized the business but the former is more widely used in rural areas for they have established more cell sites. Hence, there is stereotyping that time that Smart users are from the provinces while Globe users are city people. After years being the lead in the telecom business, the two giants were taken a back seat as Digitel introduced Sun Cellular with its unlimited call and text program that gave Smart and Globe a very very great market battle.

Digitel’s unlimited call and text program still exists but the problem with them is the signal strength. Not everybody can use it especially that their cell sites are mostly located in the cities only. The signal’s not too strong in some areas that one needs to go out of the building or some sort of an enclosed place.

The company I previously worked with is a sister company of Digitel and all our company-issued mobile phones are Sun Cellular. However, signal strength at our plant’s location is low that we need to go out of the building sometimes to clearly hear what the person in the other line is saying or raise up the phone when sending a message. A Digitel employee suggested we could request cell phone amplifiers or repeaters to have a good signal strength in the plant. Both are designed to improve signal strength and mobile phone coverage be it inside a building, house or even in cars. That should be my project before I left the company and I don’t know if it was pushed through.