Image Surgery

And the Bell Tolls

_And the Bell tolls are no more !_ Because we finally got rid of Bell entirely ! No more home phone ! Yay !

You may never notice the changes in our telecommunication cocktail, however, and that’s fine. I’ll put them here in any case so if you care, you’ll know.

Martin and Mandy now each have a cell phone. I spent over two hours getting a really great plan out of Fido (great for the Canadian market, at least), and another two hours sorting out how they royally screwed up the first bill of the new plans. But I still think it was worth it.

Before we get too far in, Martin’s phone is what used to be the only cellphone, and Mandy’s is what used to be the home phone.

To call us, you should always use the number corresponding to whom you wish to reach. If you’re local, we may call you from either phone, but long distance you will likely receive from Martin’s phone; don’t let that throw you, it’s just because of the long distance plan being only on one phone. Or, the call might come from ‘012 345 6789’, which is us calling from the computer using Skype.

Two things allowed us to do this switch: [Local Number Portability][lnp] and [Dry Internet][drydsl]. Both are really, really new and help you get rid of the redundancy of landline service if you don’t really need it.

In spite of being cell phone based now, we still have unlimited evenings and weekends, as well as unlimited incoming calls as well as Fido to Fido anywhere in Canada and our regular minutes, so our calling options are still fairly open. And if you have a Fido, let us know and perhaps we’ll call you more

And as a final note, our new cellphones (matching [Nokia 6126][6126], almost identical to the [6131][6131]) are fabulous ! The fit and finish is sleek and solid, the buttons are large and well arranged, and the software is incredibly full-featured and customisable. Synchronisation with the Mac is very fast and copies all calendars, to-do items, contacts and even contact photos, if you have them. Plus, unlike our [old phone][Z600], you can both hear the ringer outside and feel the vibration. Highly recommended. They have a camera, which isn’t great, but it’s not bad either, and we can store over 2000 teeny photos on the 17$ memory cards we bought for them.

[lnp]: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=58e8d986-aa1c-4145-a87b-2aaa5320692d&k=18869 “Cellphone users set free as wireless number portability comes to Canada”
[drydsl]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_DSL#Comparison_of_Regular_and_Naked_DSL “Dry DSL”
[6126]: http://fido.ca/portal/product/handsetdetail.jsp?id=nokia_6126&lang=en&cat=1 “Nokia 6126”
[6131]: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_6131-1434.php “Nokia 6131”
[Z600]: http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_z600-524.php “Sony Ericsson Z600”