| Thirty years ago, a cell phone was something out | | | | As for the ubiquitous cell phone, in some cases |
| of Jules Verne. Portable telephones were the | | | | people too impoverished to own a pair of shoes |
| newest thing. It was considered amazing when | | | | own a cheap cell phone, and yet the logical |
| you could carry the entire phone with you to a | | | | entrepreneurial step of franchising cell phone repair |
| different room, but if you dared bring it out of | | | | businesses is not ubiquitous. But one gets the |
| doors, weaker signals had a tendency to break up | | | | impression it will be soon. |
| in the manner of transistor radios, another popular | | | | One company with more than 20 locations around |
| hand-held device that truly was portable. | | | | the U.S. has already established a presence, |
| By 1985, transistor radios were virtually obsolete. | | | | initiated when they were merely a cell phone |
| In the 1960s and early 1970s, these | | | | repair business. Their name, like a catchy tagline, |
| Marconi-spawned gadgets were ubiquitous as the | | | | implies an urgency that appears synonymous with |
| children, often male baseball addicts, who carried | | | | cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, which is precisely |
| them around everywhere except perhaps in the | | | | what they do with your ailing cell phone, or any of |
| shower, which might have been shocking to | | | | the other electronic wizardries previously |
| some. | | | | mentioned. Their franchises can be had for a |
| These days, cell phones along with their electronic | | | | modest investment of under $100,000. A German |
| contemporaries and offspring - IPods and IPhone, | | | | cell phone repair company and one in Australia |
| Blackberries and Xboxes, Playstation incarnations | | | | appear to be following suit along similar lines. A |
| and the versatile Wii, along with their laptop | | | | smaller American company also offers cell phone |
| computerized cousins (although many of these | | | | repair franchises at less than $50,000, but sans an |
| devices possess LCD screens which resemble | | | | established presence in the industry, perhaps you |
| miniature desktop flat screen computer monitors) | | | | get what you pay for. Still, in an industry with |
| - have become as ubiquitous as transistor radios | | | | massive demand largely due to manufacturers |
| once were, perhaps much more so. The irony is | | | | shirking any maintenance responsibilities to those |
| that on many of these devices including cell | | | | minions of communications gadgetry that they've |
| phones, a user can not only watch an entire | | | | spawned, cell phone repair franchising opportunities |
| baseball game of their choice live, but bring up a | | | | aren't yet ubiquitous, and that is surprising, akin to |
| variety of multimedia visual treats as they do so - | | | | a transistor radio cradled to a boy's ear in the |
| baseball stats of their favorite players or teams, | | | | shower a generation or more ago, perhaps even |
| historical footage and documentaries, you name it, | | | | shocking. |
| and baseball is only the tip of the interactive Wii. | | | | |