Offline …

This morning my mobile phone service provider suspended my service after I hit the credit limit they imposed on my account.  It seems this is a new thing they do and once your bill hits that limit, the system automatically suspends the service.  The annoying thing is that the limit takes into account the next bill payable and the one after that that runs in the meantime.  So, basically, the bill payable at the end of February is $200 (roughly converted for the majority of my readers) and the bill for the end of March (which is currently at around $162 and will continue growing till the end of this billing cycle) are added together and if they exceed my credit limit, my service is automatically suspended.  Presumably my account would be suspended until my account drops below the limit.

Anyway, the point is, I had to call them and point out that I have always paid my bill and this seemingly arbitrary limit they imposed is really throwing a spanner in the works.  They increased the limit to a more manageable level and have queued my account to be restored and that could take a minimum of two hours and a maximum of 24 hours.

Until this point I didn’t really realise how dependent I have become on my phone.  It revives that old question, how did we manage before we have mobile phones?  And, taking it a step further, how will we react to a communications failure or suspension when we become more mobile and our communications systems become ubiquitous?