I can’t imagine how Jamaica would have been right now, if it were not for the cell phone. According to some survey I read somewhere, there are more than 2.1 million cell phones in Jamaica. When you consider that the Jamaican population is somewhere between 2.6 and 2.7 million, you can see that this is a very high ratio, eh? I guess sometime within the next 10 years, you’ll see babies coming out of the womb with cell phones in their hands :-D Someone without a cell phone is the oddity; everyone in every strata of society has a cellie.
It’s actually been beneficial for Jamaica, I think. Looong time ago, there was a monopoly on the phone industry held by Cable & Wireless, and they acted like a monopoly. Bad service? High fees? Suck it up fools, we OWN you, hahahah!! Then along came Digicel, and the view changed rapidly. While C&W still pretty much owns the land line business, Digicel made mobile phone service affordable for the masses. Competition is good for the masses and today we reap the benefits of two companies desperately fighting for our money (…
For my part, having foolishly lost the most excellent phone I carried down from the USA, I am now faced with choosing between these two services. I had signed up with MiPhone service on my lost phone but that was just because it was a CDMA phone (Digicel and C&W are GSM). Since I have to start from scratch again, I’ll have to play with the big dogs…I’m leaning towards C&W, but I’ll have to do a more intensive recon when I have some time. Most people use Digicel, but C&W has a deal where it costs the same to call any cellular customer no matter their service. Of course, it means that those who use Digicel won’t want to call me…but on the other hand, most of them never have any credits ANYWAY and wouldn’t call me ANYWAY. I’ll see what the reconnaissance has to say after I do it…
And upon further reflection, I realize that the cell phone industry in the USA totally sucks and is solely out to prey on the consumer. I should have seen it a long time ago though…I mean, why should I have to pay out of my minutes if someone calls me? That doesn’t happen here in Jamaica; you only pay if you call someone, and if they call you, you don’t pay for the call. Furthermore, I find it suspicious that the USA’s prepaid service does not even begin to compare to the prepaid service down here. In the USA, the vast majority of plans are of the flat rate/set minutes per month and you pay extra per minute if you go over. Some companies have the rollover or anytime minutes, but it still charges if you go over. I tried to get a Verizon prepaid account for my mom, but for some reason they charged $1 a day or something like that, regardless if you made calls or not. I don’t know about you, but a ‘jack is a ‘jack no matter where you are. On the other hand, the vast majority of phones in Jamaica are pre-paid minutes, where you just buy a card and add the credit to your account as needed. They don’t expire until you use ‘em, so if you buy a big chunk of credit, you can just let it sit there and call until it goes out again, and then buy another big chunk. Too many people down here just buy credit piece-piece and thus run out of it when they need it the most, but that’s not the way to go in my opinion. I don’t need a steady flat rate plan, I’ll buy the credit I need to call when I need and when it’s over, I’ll buy some more. That’s the sensible way to go. Cell users of the USA, unite! Tell your bloated corporations you want honest billing!
1 comment:
From Digicel's Terms and Conditions. Always helps to read the fine print.
"State 3: Deactive – Your account moves into this state when the
time on your voucher has expired. This can occur even with
money in the account. When you become deactive, you have a
maximum of 60 days before you move into the expired state. In
this state, you can send and receive SMS (text messages) until
there is zero money in your account. You can also receive calls,
however you cannot make paid calls."
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