What's a normal age for children getting their first mobile phone?

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Ds is ten. He has a friend at school who is always on at him to get a mobile. Ds says "All the children at school have one." This has never, will never, be an argument that works on me, I need to have other factors to convince me to go down this road.

Further questioning: I said, "What do they all do with them?"
Ds: "Use them to make prank calls and play games."

I said "If we got you a mobile it would be cheap and not very good, probably no games on it at all. It would be functional. It wouldn't be like mummy's phone (my one has all the bells and whistles, internet access, games etc). If I get you a phone it won't impress your friend, the boy with an I-Phone."

Ds: (mutinous expression).
Me: "Would you take your phone to school and show your friend?"
Ds: "No. It would stay at home. But my friend would ask me all about it."
Me (pragmatic to the end) "Okay so lie to your friend that you've got a HTC Desire. He will never know. Give him my number, you can borrow the phone and chat to him whatever."
Ds: "No, I want my own phone."
Me (despairing) "If you had a mobile of your own, I'd spend my life saying "No playing with the mobile, you can have it later for twenty minutes, just like all the other technology in the house."
Ds: "No I could play with it whenever I want because it would be my phone."
Me: "You're in cloud cuckoo land if you think just because it's yours I will let you play with it whenever you like."

I cannot get ds to pretend my phone is his phone, he is getting hassled all the time by his friend and here's me and daddy being all hard as nails about him owning his own mobile. I don't like small bits of technology, my children are constantly walking off buses leaving scarves, hats, cameras behind, a mobile would be no different. And NO WAY would he get to play with it all the time. So my decision at the moment is "no" to mobiles.

So what is a good age for a mobile and what is a good phone to own? I mean a really basic cheap one? Should I say no his whole life and teach him the value of refraining from materialism? Or does he need to learn just what a hollow promise phone owning is through his own experience?

I have a 13-year-old son who is always running out of mobile phone credit. It is very concerning to consider that your child could be out there, stranded and unable to call you in an emergency for help.

In response to the comment made by@alexbishop, there are companies such as www.68700.co.uk in the UK that enable parents to subscribe for free emergency calls for their children. My 13 year old son is on the service and it basically means that if he runs out of credit on his mobile, he can always call home for free whenever he needs to.

£3 per month for piece of mind in my opinion is money well spent!

Right, I'll be the awful parent on this thread.

My DCs have had mobiles since age 11. They could cope perfectly well without them tbh, we live in London, there are buses every couple of minutes, etc etc.

They have contract, all singing, dancing blackberry phones that I pay for, quite happily.

Yes, we all coped without phones, we also coped without Internet but I do not refuse to pay for broadband because "we dont need it"

They have blackberrys because it's the phone they like, they can talk to their friends on bbm, they can text and call their friends. It makes them happy.
It makes me happy that for the most part they are hard working, polite, decent teenagers who do jobs around the house without being paid or bribed. So if they want a decent phone, I'm more than happy to pay for it.

Frankly this is a discussion that leads to nowhere. There is no way that we can avoid the fact that mobile phones are a way of life - albeit a way of life created through the telecoms and social media providers. A phone doesnt make a child safer - I believe the opposite to be true...headphones on walking the streets, texting/messaging and crossing roads without looking.

Phones used to be like cars - everyone family had ONE. Well now everyone in the family has one (cars and phones) and NEEDS one (each).

Telecoms are aggressively pricing contracts (for mum and dad to pay) compare-mobile-phones.com/ gives some insight into how cheap contracts and pay as you go are. facebook and Google have age limits on their social media profiles T&Cs - these rules are being broken by preteens and parents at an alarming rate. All in all - dont fight the mobile revolution - just educate better.

Y6, DD1 had a very basic one, DD2 has a slightly fancier one with slow internet (she's had a lap top since she was six, I've never monitored it that tightly, beyond banning FB).

when they prove they can last a year or two at senior school schoolwithout loosing them or running up silly bills they get a better one.

DD1 has a galaxy ace. DD2 may claim one for Xmas (6 months early, but thats second DCs)