OK, so I promised myself I wasn’t going to bore everyone with to many “f*ck I’m good, I did this today” posts, after all, you’re only ever one step away from iTool and iWankr when you write a personal blog, but I do want to share what I signed up for during the week. You see, for me, mobiles are something I don’t get every day. About half of all the jobs I’ve ever had involved me having a work phone, so my actual possession of something newish and brilliant was always few and far between…indeed it was so far between that my now out going phone (a Nokia 8310) is now 5 years old. So now that I’m rich and famous (not) she who must be obeyed agreed to me getting a new phone, particularly now I don’t have a work phone…or basically a phone some one else is paying for. So I went looking for a phone. I liked the sound of 3G, but the only coverage here at the arse end of the earth was with Telstra, and I’ve hated Telstra since it was Telecom Australia and they use to charge me $1 a minute to make an STD call. OK, so the home line is with them, and I had Bigpong broadband for a while, but that’s only because I knew I’d need to move my service, and because Telstra still owns the last mile it would be quicker if I was signed up with them. Vodafone looked ok… but no 3G coverage and their cheapest plan where you get your phone for free was $49 (AUD). And here’s the thing: on my outgoing plan (which was pay as you go plan) my monthly bills varied between $6 and $60 (AUD). The only time I really use a mobile with any regularity is when I’m traveling, and I don’t do that very often. So in comes Optus. God bless Optus. My very first analogue mobile phone (an 014 service none the less…014226740) was with Optus. My first ever landline when I left home had it’s STD calls with Optus (back then it was Telecom/ Telstra for your phone and you only just had the option of Optus instead of Telecom for your STD calls…they were 40c a minute BTW, and for memory 20c/ minute late at night). Maybe I’m getting old, but when most telco’s base plan starts now at $49…well I can remember when $50 a month was the top plan and you’re plans started at $10 a month with a phone (insert old fogey noise here). Anyhow, $29 a month over 2 years including the phone and $29 a month in calls. That just suits me down to the ground. So there you have it. I’ve got a Nokia 6280. It has a 2 megapixel camera, nearly as good as my own seperate digital camera. It takes movies and comes with a mini-SD Ram slot and card. They’ve given me free internet/ Zoo service for the first two months and the golden child loves watching ABC kids on the phone on the way to daycare in the morning. And one last thing…it works in Hong Kong and Canada, so I’ll have a working phone whilst I’m away…that after all was the real reason I needed a new phone 😉
Tags: Nokia 6280
