"Halal" Cell Service

I'm sure there isn't anyone reading this who hasn't heard of "kosher" cellphones, but this article covers some cellphones marketed to other religious denominations, such as Muslims and Christians. An interesting point that the piece makes is the difference between the kosher cellphones marketed to the ultra-orthodox market, and the phones marketed to other religious markets. The kosher cellphone is really just a cell service that is stripped of any extras that are increasingly standard on today's cellphones, such as internet service, whereas phones marketed to Mulims and Christians tend to add services:

Good News Holdings LLC, in partnership with Barna Group Ltd., a Ventura, Calif.-based provider of Christian data, recently launched FaithMobile, a cellphone service that offers scriptures, Christian ring tones, and one-minute-long inspirational videos to subscribers who sign up on its Web site. The service's advertising slogan: "Have you talked to God today?" It is available in the U.S. on T-Mobile, Alltel and Cingular, selling for an additional $5.99 a month.

Good News also is planning to launch a branded phone this summer in conjunction with six ministries across the country, which will provide subscribers sermons, news, movie reviews and other content. Good News originally thought of calling it the "godphone," but thought better of it and named it the FaithMobile phone instead.

Other projects planned by Good News include a service called e-prayer.com, which will allow users to ask others to send prayers either via the Web or, if they subscribe to FaithMobile, their cellphones. David Kirkpatrick, a former president of Paramount Pictures and one of Good News's founders, says the company's products make religion more convenient for people who occasionally don't have time for church. "In our busy lives, having access to spiritual resources on the go will help us all keep connected to God," he says.

And a new Christian text-messaging service called UCB Mobile was launched in the United Kingdom by United Christian Broadcasters Ltd. last year to enable people to stay connected to their faith by text messaging prayer requests to a UCB team, who will then pray for the sender.

For Muslims, businesses have come up with cellphones that help them in their daily prayer rituals. Dubai-based Ilkone Mobile Telecommunication in 2005 launched a phone in the Middle East with an internal compass that tells users the direction of Mecca, where Muslims face when they pray. Ilkone, which comes from the Arabic word for "universe," also equips its phones with a Hijri, the Gregorian calendar, and alerts users to prayer times with an alarm that features an actual muezzin's voice. It also has a complete version of the Quran, with an English translation. The phone, already on sale in Europe, recently became available in the U.S., where it can be purchased by contacting Indianapolis-based reseller Tradelink, Inc. (www.tradelink.us).

In England, Muslims have been using MyAdhan.com as a digital muezzin. The service provides them with calls to prayer five times a day in the form of a text message sent from cellular towers instead of vocal announcements from minarets.

How far down the road could cellphones with ringtones from "The Chevra" be? Or maybe cellphones with inspirational messages preloaded on the screen, like: "Step away from the internet enabled cellphone with your hands up", or "Don't even think of downloading that Top 40 ringtone". Any day now.