Today's interesting fact has to do with mobile phones.

These minicomputers have changed our lives and have made connections to our friends, families and work ubiquitous.

To many, being without a connection to the world is abhorrent to think about. I've known people drive 30 miles to work, sit down at their desk, only to get up and drive home, just to pick up their phones from home.

One of the worst things that can happen to the modern individual, is for their battery to run out of power. This invariably leads to the unprepard to run around the office asking if anyone has a charger that can be used to charge their phone. I had a neighbour recently knock on the door to my flat, begging for a charger, as his wife had his in her handbag at her place of work, and wasn't due home for several hours.

A few years ago, the EU commission approached the companies that manufacture phones, to correct this situation, partially to stave off the potential electrical waste of thousands of tons of unused chargers, but also to make things simpler for mobile phone customers. I understand it was suggested that it was either the companies came up with a solution, or the EU could come up with a law to force it on the manufacturers. Most companies, if not all, have agreed that phones that are data-enabled, mostly 3G and 4G phones, will have this ability.

And it is this year, 2010, inter-chargeable mobile phones are supposed to be available to us, the consumer. I checked the other day, and while the 3G phones I looked at were charged by the mini-USB, most of non-3G phones I saw still had separate chargers.

This emphasis on 3G phones might cause us all problems in the near future. These data intensive phones use a lot of bandwidth. Many, in heavily populated areas, have commented on their phones cutting out, conversations dropped, data flow halted. This seems to be because while we have been buying these new 3G phones, the infrastructure is being overloaded. Indeed, for the 2012 Olympics, they are frantically increasing the infrastructure in and around the Olympic village and sports arenas, to handle the extra capacity that will be required.

Even so, there is likely to be issues, because as the analogue TV and Radio networks are still working, the bandwidth that the mobile phone companies want to take over, to increase their products connectivity isn't available. I read not long ago, that by 2013, many phones will not be able to maintain a signal, as the connections may end up being rotated between available cells.

The UK isn't the only country having this problem. In New York City, friends have reported they constantly lose connections, as have friends in Los Angles and other large cities.

So we may just need to learn, to do without constant instant communications, as more of these 3G phones are sold and used, unless the bandwidth issues are solved soon.