Beeps from the Pool
Back after two and a half weeks holiday in Tuscany, Italy. It was wonderful. Interesting to note how little internet access there was, but the mobile phone signals were great. Even out in the depth of the country signs were good, and any town would have rock-solid 3G booming in.
And Italians make great use of these networks - people were on their phones constantly, everywhere. People sitting on the beach, chatting. People by the pool, texting. A constant background noise of chirping and beeping. Mobile culture rules.
August 8th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Italians are mobile nuts.
When we were in Rome we saw people constantly changing SIM cards from little plastic wallets containing up to five SIMs.
Our Bologna-based friends said that this is widespread in Italy, and is driven simply by the differential rates offered by the various carriers.
And did we know about the numbers thing? No? Well while in most countries networks locked their users in by avoiding number portability as much as possible, whereas in Italy it’s cool to have numbers expire and not tell people the new number, hence the frequent purchase of yet more SIM cards and disposal of old, socially-passé ones …
As Homer said, “how do you tell who’s sane and who’s insane?!” …