Cell Phones

Cell phones are very common and popular here in Thailand. If you want to see just how popular, just go to one of the many IT malls. There are dozens and dozens of small booths selling both new and used cell phones. Tim's plaza at the Bangkok Bus Terminal has around twenty cell phone shops.

One thing that makes this possible is that the phone you buy is not tied to your service provider. You can buy just about any cell phone, place your carrier's chip in it, and you are ready to go. Decoupling the phone is a big boon for small retailers and in my opinion consumers. When I switched from my really terrible Nokia to my Sony Walkman phone, all I did was place my sim card in the new phone.

Of course all is not perfect here. A few months ago there was an article in the paper about a guy trying to activate his iPhone. Apparently when he got it, it was locked and he couldn't do anything at all with it. He went around to several stores, and most of the employees in apple stores hadn't heard of it, and the one that did refused to touch it. He found someone who said he could unlock it. Eventually, after paying his contact to unlock it, he was able to get the iPod part of the phone working, but he couldn't use it as a phone.

Another thing that I don't like about phones here is that very few people use voicemail. Its really annoying. Sometimes I don't need to actually talk to the person, I may just need to leave a quick message. Other times, when I really need to make sure they get the message, I tend to call multiple times.