T-Mobile offers T-Stagnant deals

Sugar cane props

It is late shopping night in Amsterdam so I went into town, something I rarely do to get some stuff.

My backup cane was broken a few weeks ago when I employed it in creating a sense of order around me. It was a cane that I could split into three meaning it could go in my bag for convenience especially in aircraft luggage bins and it was quite light but sturdy.

I went to the Englishman Hatter for a replacement but they had all these trendy canes that would do for clowning rather than for formal attire.

Ending up with a make-do cane that splits and joins up with the aid of elastic band would be a stop-gap to when I can get the real thing. For once, having to lean on a sugar cane might just be as trendy as one can get.

Acquired for a piddle

T-Mobile had acquired Orange Netherland about half a year ago and they have been offering us deals to switch to new mobile contracts – a few months ago, I left one of the shops in a fit of pique because having signed a 12-month contract, I had really been railroaded into a 14-month contract – these companies get away with the most illegal stuff in my mind.

Today, I went to both the Orange and T-Mobile shops and I really could not find a decent deal, all their offers were really for kids with a flair for MP3 players and cameras – I am a businessman, I need a phone and a deal I can use for business.

Besides, I need a company that behaves like one that operates in Europe without charging me outrageous prices for Internet connectivity in another country where the self-same company pretends to be an entirely different commercial entity.

The European Commission needs to get on the case of these daylight bandits, it is just unacceptable.

Give me a deal I cannot refuse

Some people would say I could get a Blackberry – well, that is drink and blueberries are for muffins – just give me a phone that can handle multiple mail accounts, would serve wireless connectivity, 3G, EDGE, UMTS, GPRS and HSDPA (My HTC P3600 already does this.) and do not charge me the world to roam the world and still keep connected.

As far is T-Mobile is concerned, what I saw was the equivalent of a T-Stagnant deal, I need to shop around for something that really makes that useless “A-grade” customer rating I have with Orange make people throw deals at me like I have run into a waterfall.

Always include a number to call

No stop - Go direct

Homeward bound, one needs to rethink this whole pleasure of riding the seeming comfort of the German InterCityExpress (ICE) trains with a stop-over at Duisburg between Amsterdam and Berlin for the direct but less comfortable InterCity (IC) trains.

On my way to Berlin it was just a 20 minute stop-over but on the return, I did not realise the wait would be 73 minutes. So, one has to kill time somehow.

The need to get online is compelling though Duisburg unlike Cologne does not have the DB Lounge facility which First Class passengers can access for free beverages, comfortable seats and Internet access.

The Spartan waiting rooms in Duisburg however do have stickers indicating T-Mobile Hotspots are available for wireless internet connectivity.

I prefer blackberry muffins

I do however, have to travel with my laptop most of the time because I am still blowing raspberries at Blackberries, I prefer to determine when I am online and when I want to be contacted and if I want to be connected rather than having a device that syncopates with my breathing that being alive means one is available.

For years, I have refused to accept business phones, bleepers and alert systems because they unconscionably encroach on your private time as some people might tend to take liberties because of this.

No number? Oh! Bummer

So, to kill time at Duisburg, I put my laptop on, engaged a wireless access point but could not get an IP address, there was something wrong with the service in the station.

Some, one would expect a phone number would appear on the T-Mobile Hotspot sticker, just in case one has enquiries or something goes wrong – Zilch!

You cannot be serious (With McEnroe disdain), how do they get informed of service failure if there is no way to contact them?

It smacks of technological hubris which imagines their systems would never fail such that no one would ever have to call for anything.

The absence of a contact number is to my mind a failure of the service even if it is working and if the station information desk of personnel who never learnt English - that we were communicating with Annoying Sign Language - do not have any information about T-Mobile services in their station, the cretin who came up with this idea is deserving of a payslip without the figures.

73 minutes of being rather cross and suitably not amused, one should learn to, as they say in common parlance – chill.