T 4.42 Failure of the mobile phone or PDA

A mobile phone or a PDA may become unusable for various reasons:

• The battery is exhausted because the user forgot to re-charge it.
• The battery has lost its ability to store energy.
• The user has forgotten the access password or PIN so that they cannot use the device any more.
• Components such as the display, keypad or SIM card are defective.

If a mobile phone or PDA is exposed to harmful environmental conditions, its functional performance may be impaired. Mobile phones and PDAs can sustain damage due to exposure to excessively high or low temperatures, as well as to dust or moisture.

Examples:

• An employee embarking on an extended business trip took a mobile phone plus accessories from a mobile phone pool. On the road he realised that he had unfortunately packed the wrong battery charger. As he was unable to recharge the mobile phone he could not use it any more during the rest of the trip
• The mobile phone or PDA is left in a parked car. This not only increases the risk of theft, but may also expose the phone to harmful environmental conditions. If exposed to direct sunshine, the temperature behind a glass pane may climb to over 60°C in summer. A similar problem occurs in winter, when the temperature in a parked car can drop below freezing. Such extreme temperatures can result in damage to the battery or the display.
• During a business trip, a PDA stopped working because the spare batteries were inserted too late. When it was switched on again, many of the configuration settings were lost as these were not automatically saved by the operating system. As a result, some applications such as e-mail and Internet access no longer functioned correctly.