Yesterday, I went to my postpaid network provider to check if they have an available router for their broadband since I’m also availing of their internet service. I have always wanted to have a wifi connection at home since we have a laptop, a notebook, a desktop, and my iPod touch all sharing for one broadband connection. Unfortunately, they don’t have a stock and its availability is still indefinite.
To make the most out of the visit, I inquired as to the holding period of my postpaid line and my broadband connection. The staff said that my postpaid line is effective until January 26 of next year while my broadband connection is until December 2012. I asked if its possible to choose already the phone I want as replacement. To my surprise, the staff said that I may already choose and get it at that very hour. I didn’t expect that and that seems to be an early Christmas surprise.
I was not exactly overjoyed upon learning it. My initial reaction was to become troubled because I have three phones in my possession: Samsung Corby S3653, MyPhone QT7 Duo, and Samsung E222. The latter two are qwerty dual sim phones and I’m using both of them. Myphone has my office’s Smart prepaid sim while Samsung has my postpaid Sun sim and my prepaid Globe sim. I’m not using my Corby.
To settle the matter, I’ll be giving my Corby to my father once I have it altered to accept simcard of other networks. I will also give one of my qwerty phones to my sister once I have decided which is better to keep. I really don’t like to have a new phone since I don’t need a very savvy one considering that I also have an iPod touch and mobile phones, for me, would really be exclusive for communication.
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While I was tinkering on my new Samsung Corby II, I thought of documenting the history of my usage of mobile phones. I started having one in December 8, 2000 with a Nokia 3210. I was about to graduate elementary back then. My mother and I bought it from Greenhills with a smart zed simcard. I still remember the number but I won’t post it here. I used it until second year college and then replaced it with a Nokia 3120. When I was in third year college, I bought a Nokia 5070 which I used until I started working. Then, I got a postpaid line in January 2010, that’s when I got my Corby. Then I bought my first qwerty and dual sim phone MyPhone QTV20 Duo in December 2010 just because I like the idea of being able to watch TV while commuting. It got lost around August or December of this year and that was the time I also bought my Samsung E222 and MyPhone QT7 Duo. Now, my latest phone is a Samsung Corbv II.
In a period of 11 years, I had 8 mobile phones already. I had bar phones, qwerty, dual sim, touch screen, and one with a wifi. I had 3 smart prepaid simcards, I guess I only had 1 globe prepaid simcard, and around 2 or 3 sun simcards. That’s as far as I can remember. At present, I’m keeping 3 simcards of the major networks placed in 3 phones.
The point is not to exhibit affluence. Actually, having a mobile phone is a necessity and keeping more than one phone and having more than one simcard is quite common. But the idea really is to show how much e-waste a person contributes. Imagine I only had 8 but how about those that regularly avail of the latest in mobile phone technology. They are contributing more e-waste. It would be good to conduct a survey among mobile phone users to see the consumer behavior vis-a-vis the e-waste contribution. Policy measures can be enacted to address the growing volume of e-waste through the survey results. It would be better than enacting legislations on mobile phone services taxation.
Kapag gumawa pala ako ng mobile phone history ko, i would get lost along the way. This is a very interesting post.