I saw the movie "Atlas Shrugged" tonight. The movie is set in 2016 and one of the characters had a Blackberry with T-Mobile service. I personally don't think either company will still be around in five years and if RIM does survive I wouldn't expect their 2016 phones to look like their 2009 phones.
You fail to take into account that after AT&T takes over T-Mobile, it decides that it can get away with 10-year contracts, *AND* charge a surcharge on phones you buy yourself at full price. So if you can find a used Blackberry 9700 on Ebay for $300, you get to pay AT&T $1500 to put it on their network, and a 10-year contract that renews every time you replace the battery. Or, you can buy a used Blackberry 9700 from AT&T for $3000, and a 10-year contract that renews every time you replace the battery. You have to have an excellent credit rating and sign a contract just to see the price list for newer phones, which come with a non-disclosure agreement that you won't let the price list or the phones be seen in public.
I wonder how many people are stockpiling handsets - and some rudimentary network equipment to make them ring - so than in 10+ years time they can lease them out to media production companies making "period" product so they can have authentic equipment.
I also wouldn't want to be trying to find an glass monitor in a couple of years time, an flat-panel LCD on a home computer won't look too authentic in a 1990's remake of anything.
The other stuff isn't necessary, so long as they have the handsets. The handsets can even be those nonworking display models. The sound effects guy can take care of the rest (sound is often recorded after the video is already shot). The "Universal telephone ring" is a cliche of film, the same ringing telephone occurred in virtually every production that Universal Studios did, from "Leave It To Beaver" to "The Rockford Files" (where it's part of the opening sequence), from "The Sting" to "Ghostbusters". Over the years, the sound changed only by picking up a bit of wow, from too many generations of dubbing between reel-to-reel tapes.
So in 2016 audiences will likely be seeing Blackberries on screen that announce a call with the jangle of a mechanical bell. But, since both the sound and the Blackberry will seem equally archaic, they probably won't notice the disconnect.
Dave
Taylor Schilling, an actress I'd never heard of before [but then, I never watched the T.V. show "Mercy"], see:
Also see:
-Rob
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ Rob Warnock 627 26th Avenue San Mateo, CA 94403
.......... A lot of scenes show the current phones light up with the calling ID (name or picture) as well as the ring sound, so if they ever wanted to replicate that in the distant future on an obsolete handset they'd probably need some working (also obsolete) network equipment to interface with it.
Could be worth good money to someone with the foresight now to collect the bits and store them away.
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