Time to buy a new cell phone…again? Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. How long have you been carrying around your cell phone? Even if it seems like you just bought a neat new phone with a built in digital camera….carriers and cell phone makers are trying to give you reasons to upgrade again. At Qualcomm, which makes chips used in CDMA handsets for Verizon Wireless and Sprint Networks…CEO Irwin Jacobs says…

"The camera phones have indeed been attractive, but they've been fairly low quality to date…in the sense that they're minimal number of pixels, they don't have good exposure control, don't necessarily have flash capability, etc.. And so they've been useful for taking fairly informal shots and sending them only to other phones. But the newer phones coming out now have some very strong, much improved cameras…over one megapixel…and I think consumers will find those quite interesting. In addition, we're beginning to see the first phones aimed for our EVDO technology where you get video capabilities."

EVDO is the next generation high speed CDMA network. The idea is not just to get you to buy a new handset….but to spend money on services that will let you send pictures to printing kiosks…and watch video…

"Also, the position location technology originally developed for supporting 911 dialers, is now also attracting a number of applications."

We'll be taking a look at some of the new cell phones…in upcoming reports. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.