More random musings

I went out at lunch today and signed up Steph for C&W's prepaid "bFree" mobile calling plan. Its a post-birthday, birthday present. The tardiness of the gift is fully justified, and Steph will even back me up on this. The cool thing about mobiles down here is that all of the providers offer what is called "calling party pays" or CPP service, so you only pay for outgoing calls; i.e., incoming calls are charged entirely to the party that initiated the call. For this reason prepaid plans are the predominant service plan. People leave them on and make few outgoing calls. I think its a free-rider problem and the "receiving party pays" or RPP regime we have in the States is preferable from an economic standpoint. On that note, I point you to an article in Newsweek by Dad, er, correction, by Robert Samuelson on why he hates mobile phones and will never get one.