PSA -- B.B. has an eye on your cellphone, you fool

Two weeks ago, my wife was in a car accident. It turned out to be a minor fender bender on the highway, but at the time I didn't know that.

She called me. I was out of town on business. She asked me to call 911 (her phone had gotten wet recently, and the number 1 on her keypad wasn't working -- is this shaping up to be a plot out of Final Destination or what?).

I called. I tell them my wife's been in an accident on Turnpike.

"Where on Turnpike?"

"Just north of Atlantic Blvd."

"Atlantic ... sir, this is the Lakeland 9-1-1."

The gentleman proceeded to tell me that even though my phone is a 954 Broward County area code, my cell phone company automatically connects me with the local 9-1-1 for the area I'm in.

So ... OF COURSE, the guy didn't have the number for Broward 9-1-1 (LME). He told me to call 4-1-1 ... after having to yell at two different phone operators ("You wanna be the news? My wife's been in a CAR ACCIDENT ON THE HIGHWAY and you're not connecting me!") I finally got through to a nice lady at BSO (Gracie, I think was her name) who took charge of the situation and got assistance out to my wife. The roadside assistance people even changed a damaged tire for her. I'm thankful for their help.

At any rate, I told Damian about this, and he insisted that I write about my 9-1-1 cell phone experience. I'm sure the technical types are already aware of this -- this is a PSA for the common man who, like myself, gets the cheapest Nokia phone possible when renewing his or her family plan with AT&T or Verizon or whoever.

You see, my little Nokia is a GSM phone. It has three bands -- 850, 1800, and 1900. If you're in Europe, switch the 850 for 900.

My phone is a 2G phone, even though I have a 3G chip. 2G is apparently Tri-Band, and 3G is Quad-Band. Quad-Band offers more coverage.

Well, even though I have the phone with the older technology, the cell-phone company, via the cell towers, can locate me and know instantly that I'm in Lakeland when dialing 9-1-1, even though I have Broward County number.

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Since the vast majority of people now use cellphones, I think it's pretty safe to declare the era of privacy is now over.

Here goes: the era of privacy is now officially over. It's been over for quite some time now -- several years, at least.

There, I said it. Whether you embrace the new age of everything being public (I saw an author once on C-Span pitching that privacy is overrated and this new era is better for everybody), or not, it's here.

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On a side-note: I am currently rereading 1984, and making a list of modern things that remind me of the phrases and symbolism from that book. Clearly, the cell phone tracking will be under Big Brother is Watching You.