Bl**dy Vodaphone

[Skipweasel]

Oh, that's easy - you just buy a PAYG and set the calendar to remind you=20 to make a call once a month.

--=20 Skipweasel - never knowingly understood.

[docholliday]

That may not be enough - I had an O2 PAYG die on me and I was told when I went in to get it reactivated that it was because there was too long an interval since my last top-up. I couldn't find anything in my terms and conditions nor on the O2 website to give me any more information on this, but it would be annoying if it were the case - the reason I hadn't topped up was fairly obviously that I still had plenty of credit.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It must be a long time since you did a landline to landline call if you think the average mobile call is as good quality.

[Mike Clarke]

So set up her (or your) computer to provide a reminder.

[Dave Liquorice]

land

So still pretty crap then?

So this "HD voice" has no noticeable delay rather than the diabolical

30 to 40mS of a normal mobile?

I'm with Dave, mobile phone quality is generally abysmal. Horrible delay (sometimes variable), coding distortions, the odd dalek voice, break up, noise gated, the list goes on.

[Dave Liquorice]

Not a bad idea.

Ah you are assuming a) The phone has a calendar function b) The user knows how to set up such a function and c) The phone is ever switched on to check the calendar...

SWMBO'd has a mobile (PAYG Orange) I think she has topped it up twice in the 5+ years she has had it. It is very rarely switched on, making/receiving a call is a "challange" as for texts, forget it.

[Dave Liquorice]

remind

switched

Neither of us use any form of calendar/alarm function on our PCs. I do have an iPaq that does get used as a diary I guess the Outlook Mobile it has might be able to cope, though I have my doubts it's about the worst calendar/diary program I have ever had the misfortune to use. Pity the calendar program from the Psion 5 isn't available.

[tony sayer]

What network is that then?..

In fact I use mine more then ever now as they sting you for a connection charge on the L/Line that adds up, and I never seemed to use up the 600 inclusive minutes.. But other then the odd bit of break-up its fine really on that Vodafone net;!..

What I do some times use is VoIP and that can be very good indeed..

[Graham.]

Replace that poxy electret with a Blumlein pair. Simples.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

One of the reasons I stick to the Acorn for some things. Organizer even looks like a Filofax and is just about as easy to use. But far more versatile.

[Clive George]

Who remembers calling the Antipodes via satellite? I had some conversations with Australians recently, and it was obviously going by land. I was reminded of this when I called a friend's mobile in Norway, and got what seemed like the classic geostationary satellite delay - was awfully confusing. Would it be that or just delay in the computers? I gave up and called on their landline.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember The Other Mike saying something like:

I have a few old numbers on O2 sims which I keep going by making an outgoing call or text once a month, after I nearly lost one of them through disuse.

[Chris J Dixon]

Have you looked at 18185?

Chris

[Chris J Dixon]

My Orange PAYG is about the same age. When I bought it there was £50 on, plus a bit from my old phone. I don't think I have ever topped it up.

Mostly used for receiving calls, and the odd text or outgoing. No dormancy issues so far.

Chris

[Chris J Dixon]

I have recently started using Stickies, which is freeware

'm sure I'm only scratching the surface, but it will pop up reminders very flexibly.

In fact, it has just told me to plug in a HDD and run a particular monthly backup.

Chris

[Mark]

Mobile signal is so poor in/near my house that I frequently get cut off during a call. I rarely have this problem with the landline. YMMV.

[Mark]

There's also the long delay like you're talking to someone on Mars.

[Mark]

Also bear in mind that Mobile phone operators frequently change their T&Cs so, even if things are acceptable when you buy the phone, you may find that they are not a few months later. IIRC when I bought a Virgin PAYG phone it used to be free to unlock if you had topped up enough. When I actually tried to unlock there was a flat fee no matter how much you had topped up :-(

[Mike Clarke]

Another option for a lightly used account would be to switch to Ikea's Family Mobile. Although they freeze an unused account after 3 months and close it after another 3 months they will send you emails before then reminding you that you have not used your number for a while. If you ported over your number from a different service provider they will only be able to freeze the number for 1 month, then it will be returned to the orignal network provider.

Their call charges are also very low compared to other PAYG providers -

8p per minute for UK calls, which comes out less than the BT daytime landline rate for calls of 31 minutes or less when you take into account BT's 12.5 pence per call setup charge.

[Dave Liquorice]

voice,

At a guess all of them. Call quality to/from mobiles is generally crap from my ISDN line, calls to destinations that are not mobiles are fine.