Friday, July 25, 2003

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| | Finding cello !!

And i thought procedures and things were illogical and tough back home.

I just realised how tough and frustrating it can get to choose ur cell phone plan/ carrier here. Its not like back home, where you could go to "Heera panna", buy a china made replica of the latest cell phone model and pick up a sim card from the orange store (usually) on ur way back home. It was just like that.

Here, u dont really have the liberty of choosing both the carrier and the phone model of ur choice; ONE of them can be of your choice - the other is usually a compromise. Why dont they just make cell phones that are compatible with all carriers and just float them in the market- let us decide, what we want.

Ok- maybe they do have "good" cell phones with every carrier - but being the graduate student that i am, there always seems to be this cash crunch at hand; all i wanted was a nice cell phone "with a flap" for less than $50 with the most basic of all plans (I wasnt asking for much - was I ??) and with this combination in mind, i tried every possible place i could. For the last week and a half, I have bothered everyone i knew (having a cell phone) asking them bout plans and what their opinion was - so much so, that some of them nearly gave up on me.

Another thing that added to my dilemma was that if u want nice handsets (for less) you need to sign up for a 2 year contract with the carrier - now this is unfair - i mean TWO years, 24 months ???

With all this at the back of my mind, i went to the mall last evening with 3 of my friends (read bakras). After about 2 hours of intense search at all possible target locations (radioshack, verizon wirless, circuit city) i couldnt find the combi that i was looking for. Dejected we went down to the foodcourts where atul had to wait to get his name embossed on his zippo lighter. While at that i noticed a really small- temporary "simply wireless" stall at one end. Being the inquisitive character that i am, i went to try my luck there. What i couldnt find online, or at one of the more popular bigger stores, i found at that small stall.

I am currently storing numbers and names in the phone book of the Motorola V60i;am pretty satisfied with its combination with AT&T. But tommorow is another day - and i am sure that i will come across another deal that might make me regret this decision and get the encore feeling - ONLY if i had waited a li'l bit more !!. But till then - lemme call the world and give them my new cell number. JaI. | 8:01 AM