The Big Cell Phone and Accessory Glossary

Cell phones have come a long, long, LONG way since the earliest brick-style handsets that were even larger than a home cordless phone and used only by politicians and tradesmen. That explosion of options in regards to cell phone accessories and technology inclusions means that there is a lot to keep up with! If you’re thinking about buying a new phone, or have recently bought one and are looking to deck it out with cell phone accessories and are feeling overwhelmed at all the foreign-sounding words and acronyms, you need to check out our multi-part cell phone glossary. We aren't working in any particular order (so you won’t need to wait 2 months to find out what a word beginning with 'W' means, for example!).

A/b Switch: These switches allow to move between different carriers on the same telephone, taking advantage of different call rates and specials periods.

Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the capacity of a telephone or telecommunications line to carry signals. Greater bandwidth equals more capacity, which means that more data can be sent in a fixed time period.

Call restriction: This is not really a new technology, but not many people use it to its full extent. Call restrictions can be placed on your cell phone, which mean you might bar all outgoing calls, outgoing international calls, or outgoing multimedia messages.

Clone: Hopefully you never personally find out what this cell phone term means - it refers to using a wireless phone with duplicated stolen electronic identification numbers. People would use clone to make phone calls etc on somebody else's account.

Electromagnetic radiation: There has been much talk about whether cell phones and cell phone accessories emit harmful levels of types of electromagnetic radiation. Currently, even the longest term studies have found no ill effects directly attributable to cell phone use.

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS): This data transmission technique sends and receives data in packets, rather than setting up a constant connection. GPRS can achieve short-term data transfer rates much higher than the standard current GSM network.

Best Cell Phone Accessories for Music Lovers

Cell phone accessories aren’t just about cute fluffy covers and little characters that dangle from the side of the case. There are plenty of awesome cell phone accessories about nowadays that can enhance your phone's usability, give it a few extra features, and generally make it even better than it already is! Today we check out the top 5 accessories for music lovers' cell phones.

A decent set of headphones

If you've constantly got your headphones glued to the sides of your head, the first cell phone accessory you'll need is a decent set of headphones! Bass boosting models, headphones that include mics and call answer buttons and headphones that cancel out external sound can all be had for under $50, if you know where to look!

Bluetooth headsets

With more and more cell phone doubling as mp3 players, it makes sense to grab a Bluetooth headset and remove the hassle of wires from your daily life. You can get both Bluetooth earbuds and Bluetooth over-the-top headphones.

Bluetooth speakers

Bluetooth revolutionized the cell phone industry alright! When you’re sick of having music blasyting right into your ears, or want to be able to share your favorite tunes that are stored on your phone, a set of Bluetooth speakers is a must. These are usually battery powered to ensure that you can get satisfactory volume levels out of them, so you will need to invest in a packet of batteries every now and then … but they are definitely worth it!

Handlebar speakers

Who would have thought, even ten years ago, that you could have a barely noticeable stereo attached to your bike, playing music through your cell phone? Not me! You can, though - the magic of Bluetooth and the wonders of miniaturization make this another of the top cell phone accessories for music lovers.

Cell phone boosters

Many music lovers have very delicately trained ears … and that means that when you have to stop lsitenyting to tunes and answer an actual call, especially in an area with poor reception, it can be pretty painful trying to understand someone through all that crackle, fuzz and break-up! Cell phone boosters are the answer - not quite made for music playback, but definitely making life more pleasant for those with delicate ears!