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How to survive a cellphone break

My cellphone let me down last week in a manner that nearly made my worst phone nightmares come true. It conked out twice –both on crucial days.

Updated on: Jul 12, 2009, 22:48:56 IST
Hindustan Times | By
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My cellphone let me down last week in a manner that nearly made my worst phone nightmares come true. It conked out twice –both on crucial days. First was the day the finance minister presented his budget and the second when Hindustan Times was in a relaunch.

HT Image
HT Image

In between, I quickly ran to the repair guy in Noida, but I needed his help again.

I realised how mission-critical the device has become to our lives. Here are a few tips for you to avoid a nightmare.

1) Keep a spare cellphone ready – I had an old handset that saved me for a day, but I realised my contacts were not listed on them.

2) Keep your phone book backed up in the spare handset—When incoming calls and outgoing calls are vital, just replacing the SIM card should keep you in business.

3) Make sure your spare handset is something you are comfortable with – Navigation is a pain in an unfamiliar handset, and you simply don’t have the time to learn when you are on a crisis day.

4) Use your memory card and SIM—The good phones come with one great memory cards. Store your numbers and key messages in the SIM and/or memory card.

5) Invest in the right accessories and use the ones you have – Card readers don’t come free.

6) Use your service provider – I learnt after my problems that Vodafone has a cool service where you simply SMS them to get your phone book backed up on their network. Great! Must do it now.

  • N Madhavan
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    N Madhavan

    While India saw heated protests and a debate last week over Net Neutrality -- the call to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for strictly separating content (apps) and carriage (data plans), the European Union’s Competition Commissioner took a step forward in another side of the business by charging Google with defying what is called “search neutrality”.Read More

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