| 22/6/2011 Ever since coming back from down under there's always been one task on my 'to-do' list that I always shoved aside or put off: changing my mobile service provider. The reason I needed to do this was because I'd bought an iPhone in Hong Kong and while I could use my Virgin SIM in it, Virgin doesn't offer a data plan. Considering it's taken me a week to get my SIM set up and working, I can now understand why I was always putting it off and I'm hoping I'll not need to do such a thing for a long, long time. Admittedly, it would have been quicker had I not been bothered about getting a new mobile phone number, but my old mobile's on my CVs and it's on my friends' and family's contact lists. So yeah, I wanted to keep my old number. So it wasn't hard ordering the new SIM (after weeks perusing the options) or getting the PAC code for changing my number, it was just everything else. Before giving the PAC code to T-Mobile I wanted to have the data transferred from my old to new SIM. I could have used MobileMe, but that meant providing debit card details and then remembering to cancel my membership in order to not go over the 2 month free trial. Another one was painstakingly writing down all information and then typing it into my phone again. Then I found out that every T-Mobile store allows you to exchange your data from one SIM to the other for free. So since I happened to be in London on Saturday, I located a store and did the transfer. There I learned that any info on the iPhone is not stored on the SIM but is backed up on iTunes on my laptop. Odd. I'm beginning to suspect that any information already on the SIM is also kept on the iPhone anyway, making that little goose chase pointless. But anyway, after getting home, I thought I'd give T-Mobile my PAC code that afternoon. It was before 5pm, so they had to still be open. Right? WRONG! Mondays-Fridays only. >P So on Monday I could finally give the PAC code, Tuesday morning the number was taken away from Virgin and this morning I was told to send myself a photo message in order to reactivate my number. So I took a photo, sent it as an 'MMS' and dialled in my familiar mobile number. It worked. So...was that it? I actually wasn't sure if I could now use my mobile as normal. I sent Nathan a text as an experiment but...he never replied. Thankfully, June sent me a text a little later, with no problems. So at least my mobile limbo is at an end. |