Sunday, April 26, 2009

Dual sim

I heard an ad some time back that made me wonder. Why am I still on Safaricom. Normally I pay no attention to ads and the like but I suppose when they give you actual information, rather than powerfoam plus, it's alright.

It didn't make sense whichever way I looked at it. So if I was on Zain, it would cost the same to contact my safcom contacts as it does now. Then it would cost less to contact guys on Zain. I didn't get it. Actually, I had been waiting for a while for safcom to unveil a new tarrif. Not YAP [Yet Another Promotion]. And I was thinking more recently that they are like Microsoft in some ways. At some point they will have to act on the fact that some fundamentals have changed. That is assuming they actually believe this is the case and are just stalling so as to milk as much cash from the cow as they can. Till just after revenues start to drop or something.

But being the eternal procrastinator, I'd done nothing about it. The problem with having multiple lines is the logistics of multiple phones. This is one area where chics have the advantage, and can put those [huge] handbags to use. Just throw a bunch of phones in there. No problem. I, on the other hand, find carrying around two phones rather tedious. I did, however, consider doing an aJamaa and getting a phone from my Bonga points and using it for a second line. But I realised that the only phone my points tally qualified for didn't have vibrate alert. Somehow using the term vibrator makes me a bit squirmish. There are still some gutters left in my head after all. Who knew. Anyway. A phone which can't vibrate is pretty much useless in my book, so I decided to hold onto my points for now. I can only imagine the liabilities they have based on this points business. It's no wonder they are imploring people to redeem them. Do they put them in their books or something. Can they just decide tomorrow that the promotion is over and if you haven't redeemed your points bahati mbaya.

So I started to look around for dual-sim phones. I became one of the masses that I often see peering into tu-shops with mobile phones. I always wondered what they were doing. Didn't everyone have a phone already. Not many options for me. A couple of samsung models, chinese ones and NOKLA. Ha. All this made me think whether it would really be cost effective. Will my anticipated savings from using another provider be greater than the cost of acquiring another phone. In the short to medium term. I didn't really think so. I don't run a business or anything and I actually don't call that much so the savings would likely be more in the head.

Still. I couldn't help but consider at least having another sim card. And on some sato, I went ahead and bought one. At 20 bob, even if it just lay there and gathered dust it wouldn't be such a terrible loss. So now I had a Zain line. But I'm not a fan of the sim shuffle so I wasn't going to use it until I got another phone. Then I remembered that Orange have a one bob forever thing going on, and yu [talk of a name change saving your bacon] have their crazy offers. What to do, what to do. Safcom would still get revenue from me. Probably the same amount as before even, seeing as I give them cash for internet access that I never used to before. Although even this isn't as certain anymore. But having four phones, or two dual-sim ones. Quite ridiculous.

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