Microsoft, Apple, Nokia (Symbian), Palm, Sony and a myriad of others are in a race to make the cellphone smarter, more capable and more vital to our lives.

Carriers rush to make the network more reliable and far reaching (though I get no coverage in my office on the Microsoft Redmond Campus - thank you T-Mobile, not!) and support better bandwidth.

Converged voice and data applications, smart phones, unified messengers, location aware devices all help make our lives easier.

And the advertisers view it as virgin territory just waiting to be sullied in their fight for captive eyeballs.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't object too strongly to some unobtrusive advertising especially if it's well executed and relevant and beneficial (ie helps to subsidize better/cheaper service) but the day it makes it harder to make a call or view a web page on my phone I'm going back to dumb handset that they can't target. If it means I have a device that just makes and receives phone calls... that's fine by me.

In the TV and magazine world adverts are a neccasary evil as they help support the medium. In the cinema they are a pernicious invasion (I've paid a premium to see the movie in a noisy, cold, uncomfortable warehouse with stale nachos - don't force-feed me pap for products I've no interest in).

I currently pay a hefty whack each month for my cellphone and data connection... Advertisers and carriers need to be careful they don't abuse their already tolerant (rather than happy) user base. Loyalty only lasts as long as the current contract.