Published: August 04, 2006 04:53 pm      

Businesses help hang on to data when cell phone is lost

Maybe your cell phone slipped out of your pocket in the cab. Or you cannonballed into the pool with it in your pocket. Or your SIM card suddenly bit the dust. Whatever the mishap, it’s easy to lose contact info, ringtones and games.

As a result, a lucrative business has emerged around helping people preserve what’s on their phones. Carriers charge fees to back up address books, and hardware and software makers peddle products that can pull the data off your phone. Meanwhile, to replace ringtones or games, you often have to buy the application all over again.

But ringtone and game peddler Oasys is bucking the trend by allowing customers to download applications they’ve purchased again and again from an online “virtual locker.” Customers can store contact information, photos and other data in their online account and download it to a new phone as many times as they want as long as they keep the same number, says the company’s chief marketing officer, Jonathan Ressler.

Telecommunications analyst Jeff Kagan said some companies let customers download ringtones or games a second time if they replace a phone. Other times, a customer is simply out of luck. But he said Oasys’ approach was novel in that it allowed people easy access to a broad range of content.

“The more applications we load onto our phone, the more we have to start thinking about these questions, about backing them up and protecting them from viruses,” he said. “But most people still don’t.”

Here are some other options for grabbing data off your phone:

— Carrier-based services: Wireless carriers including Cingular, Sprint and Verizon offer backup services to their subscribers for a few dollars a month. For example, Verizon charges $1.99 per month to maintain an updated copy of your phone book online, while Cingular charges about $5 a month to bundle voice-activated dialing with an Internet-based contact book.

— Hardware and software: The ability to transfer data to a desktop computer is a big selling point for Treo and BlackBerry. But for people with more basic phones, there are programs and devices that can help.

For about $35, Susteen Inc.’s DataPilot program will store phone numbers on you computer and allow you to transfer them from one device to another, while keeping your address book consistent among cell phone, PDA or other devices. (Adapters to connect your phone to the computer cost extra.)

The hockey-puck shaped Backup Pal device costs between $40 and $50 and lets users copy phone numbers without using a separate computer. Other devices allow people to remove and read the subscriber identity module, or SIM, card, which stores data on newer models of phones.

— Where to find the products and services online:

• Cingular’s Voicedial Address Book: www.cingular.com/media/voicedial—addressbook

• Verizon Wireless’s Backup Assistant: www.getbackup now.com

• Sprint PCS Wireless Backup: https://wirelessbackup.sprint.com/

• Datapilot: www.susteen.com

• Backup Pal: www.backup-pal.com/home.asp

• Universal USB SIM Card Reader and Writer: http://suntekstore.com/universal-usb-sim-card-reader-and-writer.html

• Oasys: www.oasysmobile.com