Green Bay, WI - Cell phones have rapidly become an essential device. Smart phones and standard handsets are offering more functionality and people are using their cell phone to do more things, including replace their landline telephone.

With the advanced utility of cell phones comes added strain on their battery life and with cell phones being the primary contact for 20% of the population, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association™, having a phone with a charged battery at all times is becoming a necessity. Although progress is being made on the manufacturing side to increase the size and overall life of cell phone batteries, it’s often not enough to get the wear one would like from a charge.

The good news is there are steps a user can take to conserve battery life. Cellcom would suggest the following to help conserve the battery life on a wireless device.

• -On any phone you can change the back light setting to a shorter time frame. The longer the phone back light is on when it is not in use, the more power will be drained.
• -Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are added features to help you connect to the Internet and to other devices with ease, but there are times when running these features is unnecessary. Trying to find a Wi-Fi connection isn’t going to be much help when driving the highway, and a Bluetooth signal isn’t necessary if not trying to connect to another device. Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when they are not going to be in use.
• -Smart phones offer a lot of options for applications, from the Blackberry App World to the Android Market. These applications add function and value to a cell phone, but also take a toll on battery life, especially when inadvertently left on in the background. Using an App Manager or Task Killer application will let a user know which applications are running and help turn applications off that are left on by accident.

These simple steps take seconds and can help a user get added hours from a cell phone battery.