We've been using cell phones (we call them mobile phones in the UK) at Prestongrange Museum for the audio tour since April 2004 (as far as I know this was a first in the UK). You can find a short article on how and why we produced the tour here: 
http://www.interpretscotland.org.uk/website/interpretscotland.nsf/byunique/issue10.html/$FILE/tfortour10.pdf

and the tour itself:
http://www.prestongrange.org/tour/index.html

The point is that you can do all three - phone / download / player - the content is the same. There are issues with using cell phones though that other devices don't suffer from, in particular the lack of pause and rewind functions. Nonetheless in the UK at least it would be very cheap to set up such a tour - setting up ours cost £150 (a shade under $300). For an idea of UK costs here you could look at www.callagenix.com (not the company we used, but it gives you an idea). I don't expect US providers would be more expensive. You can if you want set up the tour to generate (a small amount of) income; and you can add updates and make changes yourself through a web interface.

You might want to avoid using 'bespoke' equipment if you plan to provide equipment to visitors (after all not everyone has a cell phone), as off the shelf devices will be cheaper.

Best wishes

Pete
-- 
Peter M Gray
Museums Officer

www.eastlothian.gov.uk/museums
www.eastlothianmuseums.org
www.prestongrange.org 

-----Original Message-----

I just visited theh Asia Society in NYC and saw that they offer cell
phone tours, where you call a phone number and can then use your cell
like an acoustiguide.  Has anyone on the list seen this before or
offer this? Do you prefer it over acoustiguide or podcasting? From
your experiences, what are the positives and negatives to using cells?
What company hosts cell tours?

Thank you,

Stephanie


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