Several items

Hello Karen, I’ve turned on the comments section as you asked. I don’t know how this works, so it’s an experiment for me.

Today we got a new phone for Mary Ann. Her old reliable Motorola flip-phone flipped once too many times and the hinge broke. So now we’re playing with the new gadget — attempting to use Bluetooth. Unfortunately the LG PM325 phone we bought looks a little crippled as far as Bluetooth goes. It’s a shame that Sprint has such poor offerings.

As far as Skype goes — we have used it several times, especially in Death Valley where the only telecommunications is one very expensive pay phone. Talking to people over the satellite link takes a little getting used to. There is that long delay while the radio waves go bounce off the sky (metaphorically) and people on both ends have to get used to the uncomfortable pauses. In addition, the voice quality on the other end is worse than what we hear.

It was worse when I tried to access my cellphone’s voicemail system. (no cell coverage in Death Valley). The voice cues to help you access your account, coupled with the satellite delay, made it nearly impossible for me to log in.

Now most of these problems go away when used with a cable modem or DSL since there is no satellite latency, so I could imagine that Skype would be very handy for international calls. It’s pretty cheap to experiment. You buy phone time in 10 euro lots on the web and the per minute charge is minimal. I’ve still got 9.50 left in my account. Of course Skype to Skype is free.