The Camberra Times
There’s nothing as satisfying as just giving someone a call. Photo: Reuters
As the holiday season looms, guilty sons and daughters the nation over will once again realise it’s been months since they last called their mum, dad or Aunty Em. Now that we all have mobile phones, you’d think there would be no excuse not to call, but it’s all too easy to dash off a quick text, or filter out an incoming call till some later date. And even when you really want to talk to someone, all the technology in the world might just leave you frustrated.
My significant other was overseas recently courtesy of a work-sponsored trip to Europe. As she had to travel all that way, it made good sense to add a holiday to the return journey – at least it made good sense before she left. We both made sure that the kids and I would be able to get hold of her wherever she was going to be. We found out how her mobile would work in Germany, France and Morocco, and more importantly found out how much calling or texting would cost in each place. We set up a Skype account (which worked on her iPhone), made sure she remembered her Gmail password, and installed various entertainments on her iPad.
All went well in the beginning. Free Wi-Fi was easy to get hold of en route in Singapore and as fast as promised in Germany. Inevitably the kids and I would call early morning her time, but technology has yet to overcome the spin of the earth. In France the Wi-Fi was slightly more intermittent but still usable. It was when she reached Morocco that things fell apart. We tried several times to call or receive her call on Skype. We tried to do the same on Apple’s FaceTime. The call would start loud and clear and then mysteriously cut off, to be replaced by a series of clicks and whistles, which the kids called crazy bird talk. Mysteriously, though, the Wi-Fi was stable enough for web browsing, email and New Yorker downloads. After some research, the truth came to light. Early this year, the local telecommunications company, Maroc Telecom, had started to block Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services like Skype, Viber or TeamSpeak. I suspected a political motive but further reading pointed at a purely commercial one. Maroc Telecom wanted to create a monopoly on phone services, pushing toll calls to either its traditional phone services or its own VoIP service MTBox. The telecom company was identifying the VoIP packets as they travelled over its networks and scrambling them. Skype was popular in Morocco, used by many to contact relations, friends or customers overseas. There have been numerous Facebook posts and tweets from unhappy Moroccans along with visitors to the country. Oddly, things improved once my partner went out to the coast, perhaps because the telecom was focused on the major urban areas.
Of course there was always the odd text to keep us a little in the picture. But texting is an unsatisfying form of communication. I quickly found myself reaching a barrier when trying to convey any real news – and I don’t mean the character count. Somehow the very nature of tapping away on your phone, despite the convenience, gets in the way of really telling someone what the kids are up to in all the intricate detail that parents crave. Or telling someone how much you miss them, for that matter. Email is better by miles, but everything pales in comparison to actually hearing someone’s voice. The drawbacks of texting have not stopped it becoming probably the most popular form of modern communication; it celebrated its 20th anniversary on December 3. Last year alone more than 8 trillion text messages were sent, and 15 million texts are sent every minute. Figures quoted in a Guardian article on December 1 from a survey by mobile communication firm Acision show that 92 per cent of smartphone users still prefer to text rather than email or use social media messaging. This even though their phones make most things equally easy. In the same article, it was noted that texting is the second most common activity performed on a mobile phone – the first is checking the time. So, how will you communicate with your absent nearest and dearest over the holiday period? Text? Email? Video chat? Our frustrations could have been eased if we’d just ignored the expense and used the phone. If you are anything like me, I’ll bet you won’t find anything as satisfying as just giving someone a call.
Advertisement
gamblecr@gmail.com
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/talk-talk-talk-when-oldfashioned-chat-is-the-best-20121207-2b17e.html#ixzz2EP8PL9YE
.
