Dear LPG

I have spent the past few years of my retirement getting to grips with computers, and while I have a lot to learn I don’t think that I am doing too badly.  I wonder how many readers have found this problem.

About once every two weeks I go off to a local sweet shop where I hand over my £10 note in exchange for a credit bill with a number code on.  I never know what to do with the numbers on the bill, so I either get the local mobile phone shop or my grandson to do what has to be done to add the credit I have bought to my phone so that I can continue to use it. 

One Monday not so long ago I did this but just two days later I received a text message telling me that I had run out of credit again.  I phone very few people and could not understand how I had used all that credit so quickly.

I am one of those who emigrated from the West Indies back in the early 1960s.   For years the only way to stay in contact with those back home was by sending letters, because international telephone calls were so expensive, but then the introduction of the international calling card made it all so much more affordable to keep in contact.   Then I learned how easy it is to be able to see and hear my relatives and friends talk to me from the other side of the world using WhatsApp and Skype.  I know that there are other services too, but these are the most popular I think.  One of the other things that I did not really understand was why it was free to use the service to send messages and enjoy video conversations. 

I do use my phone quite a lot to make and receive WhatsApp calls but rarely for anything else.  Which is why I was really perplexed about why I had no credit again, but then it was explained to me.

Services like WhatsApp and Skype don’t charge you for many of their services but using them takes up a lot of data which is also paid for with the credit from your phone. 

Whatever sort of phone you have it needs power to run, in the same way that televisions and washing machines etc. need electricity.  So when we buy credit for our mobile phones or tablets we can spend it using the phone or on the internet. 

That was easy enough to understand but I had not used the phone any more than I did before so I asked why the credit had run out so quickly?  

I usually make all my calls at home but that week two people ‘WhatsApped’ me while I was out and about and I quite enjoyed being able to find a bench in the shopping centre so that I could have a bit of a chat and a bit of a rest at the same time.  But I later found out that it was those calls that had used all my credit.

While at home my phone automatically uses the data that my home broadband router provides to fuel those internet calls, but when I am away from home it depends on the credit I have in my mobile phone which is usually much more expensive.

The moral of the story is when using the internet to phone home, phone from home.

JE. Sydenham