Say your with a buddy who's talking with someone on their cell phone. You pull up your blue-tooth enable cell phone, and get in on their conversation.
"Mobile phone" for British readers.-- lawpoop, Aug 08 2003 What's Black and White http://www.nga.gov/...ite_ten_red_380.jpgand Red all over? [thumbwax, Oct 04 2004] This seems to have serious evesdropping security concerns. You may be able to create a 'buddy list' on such phones, but this can only lead to people hacking to gain access to the phone.
Although you could potentially blue-tooth your mobile phone to death: earpieces, keyboards, digital cameras, address books, etc. the communication part of the phone still has to go through the central switchboard. You can't talk with another phone directly without going through the cell provider's switchboard. How would one be billed for such a service? Would you be double billed if your friend was talking long-distance?-- Cedar Park, Aug 08 2003 I think the idea is that Eve just bluetooths into the audio from Alice's phone so she can hear Bob as well, not the phone line per se.-- angel, Aug 08 2003 You're not the only such person. I thought it was just me.-- angel, Aug 08 2003 [Cedar Park] With Bluetooth, you don't have to go through the central switchboard. The nearby friends' phone acts as the host.
That's the point of bluetooth. It was originally developed so that a wireless headset could connect to your phone. This is the same thing, except the phone can accept a second phone.
[fogfreak] I guess they have the whole 'invitation' thing figured out, given what bluetooth originally was designed to do.-- lawpoop, Aug 08 2003 "WHASSSSSSUUUUUUUUUPPPPP?"-- RayfordSteele, Aug 08 2003 Surely a far more useful variation on this idea would be short-range phone-to phone communication. Kinda like a two-way radio thing. I don't know what the maximum phone - transmitter range is, but you could have free calls with anyone you knew within that distance. As most of the equipment's already in the phone, it seems a shame not to be able to use it in this way! (NB obviously this couldn't work over Bluetooth as it only has a short range.)-- adamrj, Aug 08 2003 [adamnrj] Are you in the US? There is a company called Nextel, and their phones are also two-way radios. CBs or Walkie-talkies or whatever.-- lawpoop, Aug 08 2003 No, I'm in the UK. That's interesting though. What range do they work over? And are they using mobile frequencies or a separate radio module?-- adamrj, Aug 08 2003 Um, in the US, we have this part of the spectrum called 'citizen band' or CB. Truckers use them and such. I think that's what they use.-- lawpoop, Oct 11 2003 The problem with this idea is that it shouldn't have the words "with bluetooth" in its title, because halfbakers see the word "bluetooth" and think it's a bad idea, and because it could be implemented with other technologies. e.g. if gramma calls her daughter, daughter's spouse might be conveniently invited to join the call wherever.
One button. Not three minutes of on-hold while you dial the second conference number, because almost nobody knows how to do this.
A friend of mine pointed the benifit of this idea out to me. Before cell phones, we all had land line phones, usually with several handsets terminating the same line. That way, when grandma calls she's calling the household, not a single individual, and everyone can easily catch up on what she's doing.
We could restore some of this lost social advantage by making it much easier to join a second cell phone in a conference call.-- joeforker, Jul 25 2005 Definitely a useful idea, if not using bluetooth (which already has permission and authorisation management sorted out), then using any one of the frequencies the phones already have access to - with or without involving the cell company's towers.
There's no reason any billing should be involved in a direct phone-to-phone connection (i.e. close proximity). In the specific example, it's the same as sharing stereo (wired) earphones with one earbud for each person. The fact it's using bluetooth on each phone to do the same thing is merely the mechanics.
Of course, replace bluetooth with wifi as the medium for connecting you wouldn't need telcos for a large number of your normal calls either. :)-- gth, Aug 17 2009 random, halfbakery