Mmhmm
"where user are just get billed"
Tell the truth now, you just lifted this article from a spanish place and ran it through google-translate, didn't you?
Three Spanish operators have launched interoperable Joyn services, providing VoIP and IP messaging between networks in a belated attempt to take on the plethora of internet services stealing their customers. Movistar, Orange and Vodafone have all signed up to support Joyn, the latest innovation from the GSMA which provides a …
I've been living over here for almost four years now, so have had to visit telco offices several times. While I understand that "all morning" was probably an exaggeration, these trips are rarely smooth experiences. The paperwork is due to the fact that they changed the rules to require ID to purchase anything phone-related after the Madrid bombings, by the way.
Ranging from being told that they don't sell things which are on display in the window to attempted fob-offs using "I don't speak English" (well, we shall have to make do with my moderate Spanish then shan't we?!), I'd summarise that most things involving telcos here are expensive and drawn-out. Even purchasing a SIM card on its own involved about 15 minutes of keyboard-tapping.
Being a Johnny Foreigner* doesn't help sometimes, although generally staff are quite pleasant with the delays and fob-offs!
* Juanito Extranjero?
I was in Spain in September, and went through this in five cities from top to bottom of Spain trying to get just a SIM card for my vacation. I tried 3 or 4 different telcos and CarPhone Warehouse.
The queues start forming outside the telco doors at 10am, and then it's telenovella discussions between most of the staff and customers (up to 10 in a conversation). While they tried to be helpful, it was at least an hour of copying details from passports, filling out form after form, getting approval numbers and then being told it would take 2 days before activation!!! At about that point they'd discover they didn't have any SIMs in stock.
When the doors close for lunch, there is still usually the end of the queue waiting inside from the 10am arrivals. after that you have to wait till they reopen at 4 or 5.
San Sebastian, Seville, Salamanca, Cadiz, and some other city. Visiting Orange, movistar, CarPhone warehouse and another telco whose name I forget.
And that's how it worked. My memories are very fresh.
I tried to buy books and CDs from FNAC in Spain last year and they wouldn't allow my visa card without my passport.
If your card is not chip & pin they will always ask for an official (looking) ID in order to avoid fraud--not a bad thing IMO.
If it's chip & pin, then they normally won't ask, but still may if they suspect the card might not be yours (or are simply told to by their bosses).
Took me a while to get used to this but I learned to appreciate it in the end.
"attempted fob-offs using "I don't speak English" "
People who have english as their mother tongue must start considering that people speaks english as a courtesy and not as an obligation. Wherever I go, i always try to make myself understandable in the local language and learn about local culture. Foreigners entering the US have a 5 minutes paperwork experience right? Foreigners with dark skin entering the UK always get a warm welcome from the truly polite policemen at the airport right? And guess what, all the tight policies result from the terrorist attacks, which are not related with the political and military interventions by the US and the UK right?
You must live in a paradise, where every service works just wonderfully. If not, just go roaming and don't complaint how hard it's to get a SIM card in another country.
I didn't say that I expected people to speak English with me; I said it's used as an excuse to try and get rid of me. Sometimes it seems like the places aren't interested in making any money.
My Spanish is fairly decent these days, but of course people can still tell I'm not a local so assume I want to use English.
Que será será!
With the recent comments on Android / iPhone share I've been nosying around when in pubs / airports etc.
The thing that has struck me is that the iPhone is used by more females than males (it's not a scientific study!!). And the Android phones were more the high end (SGS II/III, HTC thingy etc) with a smaller smattering of mid-level.
Wonder if the reg would carry out a survey to see if this male = android , female = iphone holds true anywhere else
Or just add the Skype app and just get billed for local data regardless of whether or not the other party is in some local clique.
At the end of the day, you can either use Joyn for those on it and Skype for everyone else, or just use Skype for everyone. Given those two choices, it's not hard to see which one wins.
If Joyn is "some local clique" then surely that makes Skype a clique as well. Not everyone is on Skype.
A service provided by mobile operators stands a better chance than most at building a bigger user base than Skype provided they charge appropriately.