How much would you be willing to pay to make sure you never lost any of your cell phone data again? If you ever have lost your mobile contacts, how much would you have paid to get them back?

I went to dial my husband from my sister’s phone the other day and realized I had no idea what his number was, since it has been programmed into my cell phone for the past seven years. Has this happened to you yet?

Our cell phones have become like little command centers for our lives, and we rely on them more than we might like to admit. That’s why I shuddered when I heard several T-Mobile Sidekick users had lost all of their phone data after a server crashed. These poor people had their phone numbers, pictures, e-mails and notes wiped out entirely.

Official word from T-Mobile was that the data was probably gone for good. Fortunately, to everyone’s surprise, the data was restored. But that little snafu got lots of people thinking about how valuable our own information is.

So now is the time to take a cosmic hint from the universe and do something we all should have been doing long ago—backing up our contacts.

And though data backup is a valuable service, there are companies that offer it free. BitPim.org is one of them. It sends a copy of your phone’s information to your computer’s desktop, free. It is compatible with several different types of phones, but as free, open source software, it claims no responsibility should it lose your information or cause damage to your phone. Another service is Voda- Fone People, which can be had free at Vodafone360.com. VodaFone’s backup service used to be Zyb.com, which was highly rated by users.

Microsoft My Phone backs up your information to a password-protected Web site hosted by Microsoft. And if you lose your phone, you can log in and see a map showing the location where it was last used. It doesn’t work for all phones, however, just smart phones using the Windows Mobile 6 + operating system.

Some phones, such as Nokia and Palm, allow you to back up your cell phone contacts on your computer as a matter of function, either with a cable or via Bluetooth. Apple iPhone users can sync up using iTunes.

Most mobile carriers offer backup services for a price, such as Verizon’s Backup Assistant and AT&T’s Mobile Backup, which regularly update your contacts online for a monthly fee of $1.99. But those backups happen on your cell phone carrier’s servers, which would not have been helpful in the case of a carrier outage like the one that happened at T-Mobile.

Those willing to fork over more cash can try the Universal Pro kit (about $70), which syncs to your computer through an included cable. It works with most phones, which means you can keep using it even when you change phones or switch carriers. Cell Stik (about $40) is a device that plugs into your phone to store its information. It can then be uploaded to your computer. Now get out there and take care of it.

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