This paper reports a field evaluation of the mobile phone as a "package" of device and services. The evaluation compares 44 university students' usage and user experience of communication before and during rendezvous. During a rendezvous (en route), students rated many aspects of the experience of phone use less favourably than before a rendezvous (prior to departure). This impairment of experience is attributed to the cumulative effect of various adverse factors that occur more often during rendezvous--incomplete network coverage, environmental noise, multiple task performance, time pressure, conflict with social norms, and conflict with preferred life-paths. Also, during a rendezvous, students were more likely to use the telephone, less likely to use e-mail, but equally likely to use text messaging, compared to before a rendezvous. This change in usage is attributed to the need to exchange and ground information almost instantly during a rendezvous. Implications for the design of 3G phones are discussed. (Contains 8 tables and 6 figures.)