What happened to the phone booths?
What happened to the phone booths?
I’m not talking about the telco landline phone booths that were probably around in the 1990s. I think it was ~5—10 years or so ago that there were many hole-in-the-wall convenience shops that had phone booths. I never used them but I’m not liking GSM voice prices so I wanted to try them out. I assume they are cheap voip lines.
But I cannot find any now. I saw 6 or so (what I think are) phone booths in a Ria money transfer shop, but they were taped off and out of use. Anyone know of any that still exist?
I found this but I think they are just talking about telco serviced phones:
https://www.thebulletin.be/public-phone-boxes-thing-past-belgium
You're viewing a single thread.
People use their phones. Digi is 5€ per month
https://www.digi-belgium.be/en
https://www.test-achats.be/hightech/telecom/news/digi-belgium-nouvel-operateur-telecom
That’s a quite good deal. There are some barriers with Digi that makes them exclusive:
- Only people who are willing and able to use ItsMe can place an order with Digi. ItsMe is a Cloudflare service which is a US tech giant who discriminates against several demographics of people and triggers a lot of ethical issues. So I will not have anything to do with ItsMe.
- Strangely, the ItsMe authentication that Digi uses demands a phone number. Did it occur to them that someone ordering a phone subscription may not have a phone? (I happen to have a phone [without credit] so it wouldn’t stop me, but I still like to call out incompetence when it appears)
- I don’t like the discrimination against unbanked people and apparently there is no way to get that 5€/month plan without patronizing a bank.
I prefer prepaid because unbanked cash payers are not excluded (apart from some exceptions). And because use-it-or-lose-it within a time limit is designed for people to pay for more than their consumption.
Orange prepaid is 15 €c/min. So at €5/month that amounts to 33 min/month, which is probably the max I would use in a month. On average I would use less. So an Orange top-up for €15 would last me longer than 3 months. Even though 15 €c/min is a terrible price, it’s still cheaper than Digi for my consumption strictly in terms of voice calls. The 15gb of data really puts Digi ahead for me, but the exclusivity factors still prevail. I can’t stomach the thought of supporting Digi’s forced Cloudflare and forced banking policy. Digi will test my ability to stand by my ethics.
I appreciate your feedback nonetheless. The one thing Digi does for me is at least they add to the competition which should keep prices under control. Phone booths would serve anyone including tourists & cash payers. Prepaid GSM is the next closest service to that market. The quite a big pricing gap between prepaid and post paid plans seems to reflect the indirectness of that competition.
Lycamobile has prepaid plans for 8€ per month: https://www.lycamobile.be/fr/bundles/forfait-prepaye/#pass-nationaux
Indeed but the Lycamobile bundles bring the use-it-or-lose-it detriment. You get a good measured rate if you buy the 8€ bundle (by dialing
*1392000#), but the minutes you get from the bundle are use-it-or-lose-it before 1 month. I am confused about some things because Lycamobile’s 8€ deal is exclusively online, according to a shop selling Lyca. The shop said paying cash for a top-up in a shop has a min of €10. Not a big deal, but the bigger problem is 8€ is the smallest bundle Lyca offers. So in my case I would basically be subject to unbundled prices (IIUC):https://www.lycamobile.be/fr/rates/national/
12—20 €c/min, and it looks complicated to know what the cost is. There are two different prices for non-Lyca callees & the distinction is unclear.
Interesting.
So an Orange top-up for €15 would last me longer than 3 months.
Just reading your comment above, you're good with Orange top-up then?
I’m not happy with Orange’s 15 €c/min. Hence why I was looking for a phone booth option. But yes, Orange seems to be my best option given my constraints and what I know. (Or Ello… not sure about Ello because I see no shops selling it)
What I know about is basically limited to the prepaid services listed here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20240222003936/https://www.bipt.be/consumers/list-of-mobile-operators
I would be interested in any prepaid services missing from that page.