Crews Letter #2007 02d Mobil Phones in Europe

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Some recent email exchanges:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Telephones
From: Carol
Date: Thu, May 03, 2007 12:23 pm
To: Phyllis & Fred

Fred and Phyl,

Dave has an ATT (formerly Cingular) cellphone. It seems that we can take it and use it abroad (4 bands width or something) with a lot of roaming and per-minute charges.

How easy is it to rent a cell phone for 24 days when you arrive in Paris? How can you find out info about renting in advance of getting to Paris?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Carol

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Telephones
From: Phyl & Fred  
Date: Thu, May 03, 2007 2:16 pm
To: Carol

Cell phone rental.  Sadly, we don't have a clue. 

The last phone we bought in Europe (Greece) was a prepaid deal that cost  55 Euro ($75) and the deal was instant sign up and 30 Euro ($40) worth of time.  It is a prepaid account with voucher cards in 5 to 50 Euro sizes anywhere tobacco is sold.  I suspect it would pay for itself very quickly.

Two years ago we dropped Sprint and started using Minute Pass for transatlantic calls.  Sprint $2.40 / minute, Minute Pass $0.60 / minute Turkey to Texas.  And no monthly charge.  It was in excess of $35 / month at Sprint.

The funny aside with that exercise was at the same time we dropped all of the extras at SBC on our land line. That is, all but one. We pay $0.08 per month to have tone dial. When I asked to drop it, the man on the other end of the line gasped,

“All modern phones use tone dial.”

“Yes. We have electronic phones. They can simulate a rotary (pulse) dial.”

“We would have to add hardware to accept it.”

For less than a dollar a year, why make waves. I have already paid extra to get an American car with a standard transmission. We have tone dial.

Regards,

Fred

PS - Does Dave find amusing or disgusting the name contortions AT&T, SBC, Cingular, at&t, et al are inventing and discarding to obfuscate any name identification with former business practices?  One can only guess the money, time and effort wasted on corporate branding.  The consultants must be laughing on their way to the bank.

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