When we decided to move to the UK, I announced to Ange that we were only going to have one phone. We would only need the mobile phone. With that, all needs would be met. Sadly, the telecommunications companies of Britain have conspired against me.
We bought our mobile phone from Orange. A hip little number. One that all the kids have. A Sony Ericsson w810i. In addition to being a phone it is a mp3 player, a camera, a video camera, a flashlight, an alarm clock and a games machine. I suspect it does many more things, but I can't be asked to work them out.
Life with the Orange phone lasted about 2 weeks when we realised that they didn't have a decent international plan. I looked into many options, buying a calling card from the Post Office at one point. What seemed to make sense was to buy a pay-as-you-go long distance SIM card (they're cheap: £10 was all we had to fork out) and fire it into an old mobile (which we had from my brother Sam). This would have the dual benefit of giving us a phone with cheap long distance (5p a minute to Canada) and allow Ange a mobile for emergencies. Suddenly we had two mobile phones.
As we moved into our house, my focus was entirely on broadband internet. There were lots of options (discussed below in another entry) but going with Orange made the most sense, cost-wise. The hiccup? We needed a BT (British Telecom) phone line. So we got a BT phone line. The house came with a phone, so one might as well plug it in. Bob's your uncle, we have two mobiles and a landline. For an extra £1/month, we got cheap calls to North America (4p per minute). How could I resist: Ange's mobile is almost certain to give you a brain tumor with extended use and it is a pain to top-up, so I signed us up to BT's international plan.
Last night I get a call from Orange. With our 'Livebox' (read: internet modem thingy), we get free calls to over 100 countries around the world. Cripes. All we have to do is plug a phone into this Livebox thing. You know I won't be able to resist. Free calls? Time difference being the only obstacle to phoning friends and family? By Sunday, we will probably be the not-so-proud owners of two mobile phones and two landlines. Four numbers, not including work numbers. If you include plastic phones that light up and play songs when you hit the numbers, we will have six phones in the house. I fear we have become slaves to the age of easy-peasy digital communciations.
2 comments:
I was just commenting last night to a friend how amazing it was that each person has a bazillion numbers to their name. For you, hopefully you will not soon need a dedicated fax line!
kb
ps. when I try to give Alex my fingers to walk, he figures it will be too slow and plops right back down again to scoot. When we are chasing him to retrieve something of vital importance, he has been known to break the sound barrier by doing his little bum scoot!
In case you end up paying for your free phone calls somehow (i.e. staying with Orange proves too dear), don't forget that if you have a BT line, 18866.com offers ridiculously cheap calls (1 or 2p to Canada per min).
Re. sims abroad, i'd start by looking here... http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1119870249,48922,
then again you seem pretty sorted already!
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