Does anyone still have a car phone?

MidnightQueen

Just wondering does anyone have one of these anymore or has the trend died out since the mobile phone boom?
Not the phones or cb radios in trucks. LOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_phone

pudzey101

Ill be very surprised if someone picks yes I havent seen one in ages :eek:

MidnightQueen

I'm a little curious too. I was watching a movie from the 90s there and saw one being used, so i wondered are they still being used today.

mickdw

You mean like a seperate number in the car?

Atlantic Dawn

Nothing to do with the boom, problem is phones are obsolete once the car is launched, coupled with the fact that you would need tp be swapling sim cards theres no point. Modern cars bluetooth integration and this is the way ahead.

MidnightQueen

mickdw wrote: »

You mean like a seperate number in the car?

Yes.

pudzey101

Iv'e only seen them in the old BMW, Mercs and Audis

Rackstar

I don't have one but I do work for a haulage company that has car phones in their trucks, does that count?

MidnightQueen

Rackstar wrote: »

I don't have one but I do work for a haulage company that has car phones in their trucks, does that count?

No not really, they are quiet common alright. Are you the person that hit the yes button?

SeanW

Carphones? Meh, I always thought those were things the super-rich had in the 1980s. In any case I would imagine they're totally obsolete now.

Compton

mainly old bmw 7 series and mercs have these.. Im sure you can clone your sim too so you wouldn't have to switch sims.

Voodoomelon

Nokia 3110 in mine, works perfect with an 02 sim.

Owen

shblob wrote: »

mainly old bmw 7 series and mercs have these.. Im sure you can clone your sim too so you wouldn't have to switch sims.

You can't clone SIMs, you're thinking of the old analogue phones where you could clone the ESN's of the phone.

Cookie_Monster

wouldn't they be illegal now anyway?

Absurdum

I have one of these with this handset. It's just a bluetooth though.

LLU

Isn't there still a whole Warehouse for car phones somewhere?

GalwayKiefer

I've a relation in Boston who has an older Merc with one built into the car but that's it - I've never seen one anywhere apart from that.

Rackstar

KittyKat wrote: »

No not really, they are quiet common alright. Are you the person that hit the yes button?

I went with NO

cjt156

Saw one in a 996 not so long ago. Obsolete before it was released, can't imagine why it was ordered.

Anan1

The last car phone I saw (as opposed to a dealer-fit car kit with removable handset) was in the W202 Mercedes in 1998 - MDL fitted them all with a Blaupunkt radio/phone with handset - you put your GSM SIM card into the unit.

Hogzy

Absurdum wrote: »

I have one of these with this handset. It's just a bluetooth though.

Why dont you just get an ear piece? That product seems totally useless as you still cannot drive while holding it.

corktina

LLU wrote: »

Isn't there still a whole Warehouse for car phones somewhere?

I always thought it was a stupid name, amazed they havent changed it!

subway

as others have said, this extra was so expensive when released to only feature in very high end cars.
before the cost even had a chance to drop, mobile phones took over so they never really filtered down to more ordinary cars.

they look ridiculous now as they are a forgotten technology. if you see a 16 year old car with built in sat nav you think, wow that was ahead of its time.
see the same car with a phone in the dash and you think, thats so outdated

McCrack

I drove an E31 once, I think a 1998 that had one. Very rare to see them nowadays.

mike65

My Merc (1990) had one by NEC, looked kinda retro cool in the centre console.

Mr Benevolent

Would those old carphones work today with a standard SIM? I think they're cool.

YBTurbo

My Ford Granada Cosworth had one (Someone removed it before I bought it)

Absurdum

Hogzy wrote: »

Why dont you just get an ear piece? That product seems totally useless as you still cannot drive while holding it.

The handset part is just for "privacy", it's still handsfree unless you pick up the handset. It was in the car when I bought it, otherwise I wouldn't bother since nobody ever rings me apart from the foreign computer virus dudes.

justsomebloke

according to bangernomics yes they do

MidnightQueen

Ha gas so people do still use them. I thought they were a thing of the past aswell.

Peter C

My 98 523i has a car phone, £1600 at the time as an option!!

KTRIC

I have one in the Arnage , don't use it much though.

coylemj

Lennie Henry used to drive around in a car with a coinbox phone! Ok, it was part of a TV sketch.

coylemj

And on the 'oneupmanship' that went with car phones way back when they were in the category of space-age technology...

Sir Lew Grade and Bernie Delfont were theatrical impressarios in London in the 60s and 70s, each travelled around in a chauffer driven RR/Bentley. At some stage Lew Grade got himself one of the first car phones in the UK and bragged about it all over the place by calling people from the car. So a few weeks later Bernie got himself a car phone and promptly rang Lew to say that he was now in the exclusive club.

Lew was expecting the call and had the chauffer primed so when Bernie rang, Lew's chauffer took the call and said 'Oh I'm sorry Mr. Delfont, I can't connect you, Sir Lew is on the other line'!!

For Forks Sake

corktina wrote: »

I always thought it was a stupid name, amazed they havent changed it!

In Spain they go by "The Phone House", not much of an improvement

Voodoomelon

The phone in my E38 was part of a "communication pack". This came with the Nokia 3110, the cradle and integrated charging cable and rear RJ11 fax connection.

The phone is not just a standalone handset, its an integrated part of the cars audio system and sat nav system. Incoming calls cancel the radio/cd/tv and come in over the speakers. The microphone is located above the headlinder out of view.

Selecting the telephone option on the sat nav screen allows you to view all the phones text messages, phonebook, dial out new numbers etc etc. It also has an emergency option that dials the emergency services in an accident and provides them with the cars GPS co-ordinates.

Not bad for 11 years ago!

zilog_jones

Confab wrote: »

Would those old carphones work today with a standard SIM? I think they're cool.

It depends on how old they are.
The GSM system was only introduced in 1993 in Ireland, but didn't become very popular with mobiles (not sure about carphones) until the late '90s. Other older phones would have used the analogue TACS system (with the 088 prefix) which ended services in 2001.

Dardania

Owen wrote: »

You can't clone SIMs, you're thinking of the old analogue phones where you could clone the ESN's of the phone.

Not completely true - up until about 7 years ago you could clone SIM cards - since then they have encryption called comp128v2 - seemingly impossible to crack. I used work in a shop that sold mobiles, and we always cloned SIMs for dudes with high end cars and car phones. SIMemu was the software that ran on the SIMs

Confab wrote: »

Would those old carphones work today with a standard SIM? I think they're cool.

zilog_jones wrote: »

It depends on how old they are.
The GSM system was only introduced in 1993 in Ireland, but didn't become very popular with mobiles (not sure about carphones) until the late '90s. Other older phones would have used the analogue TACS system (with the 088 prefix) which ended services in 2001.

The older GSM carphones would be generally at 900Mhz, whereas today people's mobile phones would work at 900, 1800 or even 2100Mhz for voice calls. Funnily enough even though they only work at one frequency network signal wasn't a problem - they were about 8 times as powerful as a typical mobile...

coylemj

I had a 1998 Merc. C180, the Irish models were fitted with a Blaupunkt radio with an integrated GSM car phone with a cabled handset, you could answer a call in handsfree mode and if you or the passenger wanted privacy you could lift the handset and carry on as with a house phone. The only problem was that the SIMM had to go into the radio on a plastic card the size of a credit card and getting the SIMM to and from a regular mobile phone was a pain so on short trips in the car I used a Bluetooth headset connected to my mobile and on long trips I'd use the integrated phone.

dgt

My dads W126 has the remains of a car phone kit in the boot

I also have the remains of a mobile phone kit for this badboy

giggsirish

Up until 2008/9 integrated phone was an option on the volvo s40/60/80

The SIM card slot was in the glove box and the phone - well there was no phone as such. The keypad on the dash/radio was used to dial out numbers.

** Auto Trader has many listed with integrated GSM phone up to 2007. Its still an option but now serves as an aid for breakdowns where it dials a service centre to transmit your location and diagnostic codes.

For Forks Sake

giggsirish wrote: »

Up until 2008/9 integrated phone was an option on the volvo s40/60/80

The SIM card slot was in the glove box and the phone - well there was no phone as such. The keypad on the dash/radio was used to dial out numbers.

Hmmm, interesting.

*Goes to check glovebox of S40 for sim card slot*

Damn You giggsirish *Shakes fist*