Heartland

I support a database product that contains a field where the user can enter a mobile or celphone number. This field is currently labeled SMS (for Short Message Service). Unfortunately SMS is pretty much unheard of in the US where most of our customers are - here it's referred to as texting or text-messaging. In addition, SMS is not really a good term to use, as it doesn't refer to a phone, rather to a feature.

In order to make sure that we use the clearest terminology, I'm soliciting input from the HL community, given that we're all from all sorts of wild and wonderful places: is there a description for mobile phones that lots of people would recognise? This goes for the Americans too - I know they use "cell" or "celphone" here a lot, but is "mobile phone" widely understood to mean the same thing, or would it be seen as referring to a cordless phone?

Input is appreciated!

I think there is a distinction to be made between "mobile" & "cordless" phones.
"Mobile" sort of infers that you can go anywhere with it.

"Mobile" is as good as any name I think.

I'm sure the septics can grasp that. We can interpret "cellphone" okay, so why can't "mobile" suffice?
& I'm sure that if folks read their user manuals, SMS would be the listed function of the phone, but "texting" is pretty well known.

A german will understand "mobile phone" instantly almost securely without mistaking it as cordless.
Before marketing established the term "Handy" for mobilephones they used to be reffered to as Mobiltelefon here as well so that should work with 80% of my beloved fellow krauteaters.

"Mobile" is good - we never use "cellphone", although we know what it means when we hear it.

"Texting" is also good, and would be our most common term, although "SMS" is well understood in a lot of circles, but mostly used to refer to the capability of some non-phone device to send you a message. It's occasionally also known as "having text" with someone - you might not want to use that one, though!

Belgium must be one of the only countries where the original term for a mobile phone is used, GSM, the Dutchies call it 'mobieltje' ('small mobile').

Texts are called SMSes or 'berichtjes' (messages), I'm using text most of the time though as I seem to prefer that, not much of an abbreviation fan.

On the whole, methinks mobile would be the most obvious choice for world-wide understanding.

I forgot to mention - at some point in the past we became the country with the highest amount of mobies per head of population, and a lot of people just call them "a phone" nowadays, which on it's own is normally understood to refer to a mobile rather than a landline.

I dunno that "mobile" would be universally understood to mean "cell phone" over here (lots of Gen Y-ers seem to use Sidekicks and the like, as well)... Hmm. I realize that "mobile" indicates a cell phone, but...I dunno. Even for me, "mobile" still often brings to mind those massive wireless clunkers (including car phones - remember those? ) from the late 80s-early 90s, hahaha!

Fortunately most of our users are baby-boomers and Gen-Xers than Gen-Y, and a couple of them have been flummoxed by our referring to mobiles as SMS, hence the search for a better description.

Carphones were cool - no episode of Lovejoy would be complete without the posh bird getting a call in her Rangerover, and George Cowley would have been completely up the creek without the phone in the back of the Granada (sing the theme tune with me, people - you know you want to:
Dun dun dun-dun, bawh ba da da dawh, ba-da-da-da. )

moby and TXT

If it's web-based why not detect the client locale and adjust the text accordingly? Or failing that, do you have an input field for "country" or "location", which you can adjust the text based on the response to?

down here in oz it is SMS and mobiles, but over the last few years texting is becoming more recognised, it's easier to say then SMSing.
Oddly enough I have asked Americans why they say cell phones and haven't got a decent answer, I always assumed it was something with the battery, but I have no idea.

Cheers to all for the good input - looks like "mobile phone" is the people's choice, so that's what we're going with.
I like the idea of making it dependent on location - when we set up user accounts we can designate country and language, but I don't know that our programmers would relish recoding the whole system to accommodate it. Given that they've yet to create something that works right out of the box and doesn't fall down on a regular basis I don't want to suggest that they try walking and chewing gum at the same time!

They're called cellphones because they operate on a network of radio cells - but it's a bit complicated for the Americans (present company excepted, of course ), who have only just got themselves onto a 3G system and who have yet to work out the benefits of caller-pays arrangement.

ozjohn1 wrote:Oddly enough I have asked Americans why they say cell phones and haven't got a decent answer, I always assumed it was something with the battery, but I have no idea.

Good question! They've always been known as "cellular" (or "cell") phones over here, and now I know why!

ummm

Mobile/Cell Phone Number: [____________]

Mobile dog & bone?

iPhone Number:

Quiff Boy wrote:ummm

Mobile/Cell Phone Number: [____________]

A fiver to the man with the gammy database server!

thanks. i think

in Italy we call the mobile phone something similar as cellphone("cellular"...translated) or currently "little-phone"(something similar) and for txt messages only SMS....or currently we say "i'll send you a message"....cordless, home telephone? you can find one only in offices