Mobile phones

[Arizona11]

According to Google, 3% of UK households do not have a mobile phone. If the population is about 60 million, then maybe 3 million do not have or use a mobile phone.

I am one of those people who has never used one simply because I don’t feel the need. I am happy to use land lines and do not use social media because I don’t really care what my friends eat for breakfast. It does not cause any meaningful problems but I am beginning to come up against some hurdles. For example, my bank wants to send me a security code by text in order to confirm my credit card payment. What am I supposed to do. Why can’t I get codes by email?

I appreciate that I am in the small minority, however, why should I be forced to get something I have no daily use for. Even if I get the cheapest one available, I still have to lay out money and then look after it like a Yamagochi or it will run out of charge.

Any advice please for this poor sod living in the Victorian age?

[sg31]

You aren't the only one.

I've had mobiles in the past and I've still got an old one but I can't get a signal at home. We are rural and in an area where the signal is intermittent. I can send a text if i go to the top of our garden and wave my phone in the air for a few minutes. Phone calls sometimes make it to my phone but rarely last more than a few seconds before the signal is lost.

Like you I have trouble with the bank texting me codes, occassionally I will get them, maybe 1 or 2 in 10.

I did raise this problem on these boards and apparently it is possible to link ones mobile phone through the internet. Apparently my phone isn't suitable and I'd need to change phones to do this (according to '3'). I'm loath to move from 3 because their credit on a PAYG doesn't expire at the end of the month. I'm still on the £10 top up I did 4 years ago before moving here.

I don't really want a phone other than to use it in the car in case of a breakdown or for the bank security code texts. I am a bit technophobic so I don't think I'd get the full benefit anyway.

[swill453]

For example, my bank wants to send me a security code by text in order to confirm my credit card payment. What am I supposed to do. Why can’t I get codes by email?

Which bank are you with? Any security system I've seen recently has at least one alternative to a mobile phone. Maybe by phoning with a code to a landline, emailing the code, or letting you use a keypad device to get a code number.

Scott.

[Itsallaguess]

According to Google, 3% of UK households do not have a mobile phone. If the population is about 60 million, then maybe 3 million do not have or use a mobile phone.

I am one of those people who has never used one simply because I don’t feel the need. I am happy to use land lines and do not use social media because I don’t really care what my friends eat for breakfast. It does not cause any meaningful problems but I am beginning to come up against some hurdles. For example, my bank wants to send me a security code by text in order to confirm my credit card payment.

What am I supposed to do. Why can’t I get codes by email?

I'd nip into your local bank and have a word with someone face to face.

Explain your position, and ask them to tell you just what options are available for the issue that you're having. You might be surprised, and there may be alternative methods of solving this particular security check.

With that said, you seem to be assuming that everyone who owns a mobile phone falls into your category of 'Facebook-obsessed over-sharers'.

I can assure you that this isn't the case, and it's really quite easy to be the owner of a mobile phone and simply use only when it suits you to do so......

You also seem to be making the mistake of thinking that all 'text-enabled' mobiles are also internet-enabled 'smart phones' - the ones we see people swiping at when they're viewing them. This also isn't the case, and it's still possible to get quite small, unobtrusive mobile-phones that are not 'smart phones', but will let you send and receive texts, and this might offer some sort of half-way-house for you if your chat with your local bank offers no substantial alternative to your current security issue.

Here's some examples of PAYG, 'non-smart', text-enabled mobile phones from Argos, just to give you an idea of what's available and in what price-range -

https://www.argos.co.uk/browse/technolo ... ort:price/

I can't recommend any of the above, so this is only to show some examples, but I also note that Carphone Warehouse have a free Nokia 105 offer, so long as you buy a £10 top-up, and I'm a fan of the budget Nokia phones, so this may be something you might want to explore if it interests you, depending on how you get on with your bank.

Finally though, lots of people allow their mobile devices to enslave them - you don't have to though, and we can treat them just like 'tools', similar to any other day-to-day 'tool' that we use....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Watis]

What 'Itsallaguess' said, plus your concern over battery charging doesn't apply to the non-smart phones he linked to - their battery life will be days or weeks on standby. In fact, 'up to 720 hours' on one of those phones picked at random. That's a calendar month!

Then there's some comfort in having a means of contacting someone - or even having to call '999' - more or less wherever you are.

Watis

[Itsallaguess]

Apologies - I did mean to provide a link to the Nokia 105 Carphone Warehouse PAYG deal I mentioned earlier -

https://www.carphonewarehouse.com/home/products/nokia/105-2017.html#!colour=black&dealType=pg

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Lootman]

According to Google, 3% of UK households do not have a mobile phone. If the population is about 60 million, then maybe 3 million do not have or use a mobile phone.

I am one of those people who has never used one simply because I don’t feel the need. I am happy to use land lines and do not use social media because I don’t really care what my friends eat for breakfast. It does not cause any meaningful problems but I am beginning to come up against some hurdles. For example, my bank wants to send me a security code by text in order to confirm my credit card payment. What am I supposed to do. Why can’t I get codes by email?

I think it's going to get to the point where it will be very difficult for anyone who doesn't have a mobile phone, and perhaps even who doesn't have a smart phone. Not just the whole dire business of banks wanting to send codes to you every time you try and do something. But various parking meters and zones assume that you can make calls or send and receive texts. Some services cost more if you don't have a phone app. And so on.

My main financial account thankfully gives me the option of receiving the code by email, which is no problem if I am hone or have my laptop with me in a wifi zone. That also works when I am overseas, which text messages often do not, at least not on a timely basis.

I've had a mobile phone for 20 years, but use it sparingly. It's a Nokia flip phone. I've only recently got myself a smart phone but it is for very limited purposes. I don't even use it as a phone, but merely as a portable device. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than use a phone the way I see most people under the age of 40 using them.

And TLF is the only social media site I use, and only on a laptop.

[SalvorHardin]

A modern smartphone puts into your hand almost as much computing power as a laptop, with its own internet access, in a device that you can fit in a pocket. Web browsing, email, Google Maps for navigation, Wikipedia for information, television (BBC, ITV, CH4, Sky, BT, etc.). Get share prices (Yahoo! Finance app is pretty good for that), news, sports results on the move. You can even buy from Amazon and place bets with a bookie. Not to mention phone calls. You can even do your banking with it (I don't).

No-one has to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. As others have said, you don't need to become a slave to your phone, unlike those people who are obsessed with putting their entire life on social media and try to put it in the best possible light (i.e. lying about most things). I'm a fairly heavy smartphone user (get through about 30GB of data a month) and go nowhere near them (to my mind Facebook is a major security risk); the closest I get to social media is TLF, SeekingAlpha and TMF (the American one).

I first got a mobile phone in the early 1990s when they were the size of a housebrick with very limited battery life. Now I'm typing this message on my hand-sized phone whilst in a lay-by close to Burrow Mump on the Somerset Levels (a sparsely populated part of the county which has surprisingly good mobile phone coverage). The battery capacity had fallen to 15% but I always carry an external battery whilst travelling anywhere so it is now being recharged from that. And I see that a pigeon has just sat on my motorbike and done its business on the seat...

Old style mobile phones are good enough for text messages and phone calls, but when you see what a smartphone can do it's difficult to argue against one except on the grounds of cost (I paid £370 for my phone, expect it to last for 5 years (i.e. £6.17 per month), and £24 per month for 50GB data allowance and unlimited UK calls and texts).

Whenever I see an article about someone who has switched from a smartphone to a "dumb phone", it's invariably someone who has become addicted to social media and doesn't have the willpower to stop using it without getting rid of the means of access.

[bungeejumper]

I think it's going to get to the point where it will be very difficult for anyone who doesn't have a mobile phone, and perhaps even who doesn't have a smart phone. Not just the whole dire business of banks wanting to send codes to you every time you try and do something. But various parking meters and zones assume that you can make calls or send and receive texts.

I can empathise with what sg31 says about the situation for those of us who don't have even a 2G mobile reception at home - never mind 4G, or even the 3G that you need to get web access. On a good day, I can get 2G for half a minute or so before it breaks up, but pretty often there's no reception at all at my end of the village. 3G is a quarter of a mile away, and it's one bar at most.

And I live amid flattish farmland, five miles from Britain's second busiest tourist location! (Bath.)

Personally, I can live quite happily without any mobile reception at home, but sadly it seems that my bank won't let me get away with that situation any more. Apparently I could get a sender (or something like that) that would open up my BT internet to my 02 mobile, but it only works with a dozen or phones, most of them expensive. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

So it looks like my colleagues will have to carry on putting up with my twentieth-century Luddite ways. This stubborn old git won't even use a hands-free in the car. (Apparently it's equivalent, safety-wise, to driving at beyond the legal alcohol limit.) My smartphone is a blessing when I'm out and about, but I'll fight anyone in this bar who says I have an obligation to stay on call 24/7 when I haven't even got a signal.

BJ

[SalvorHardin]

Most of the problems with poor or non-existent mobile phone coverage in rural areas can be solved with booster gadgets, or by the network, using your home wifi.

Ee have something for their phones that lets you use your mobile via your landline wifi when you have no phone signal. A friend who lives in the sticks where coverage is usually non-existent has a phone (with 3) that does the same.

Sooner or later all the networks will have something like ee has.

https://ee.co.uk/why-ee/wifi-calling

[newlyretired]

For example, my bank wants to send me a security code by text in order to confirm my credit card payment. What am I supposed to do. Why can’t I get codes by email?

Natwest have now started sending these text messages - however if you click on "Not received your passcode?" and then "Still not received your passcode" they give you the option of logging with a card reader.

newlyretired

[BBLSP1]

Natwest have now started sending these text messages - however if you click on "Not received your passcode?" and then "Still not received your passcode" they give you the option of logging with a card reader. newlyretired

That's a good confirmation - Thank-you. I mentioned on another thread that I had enquired with NatWest about this and they had said the card reader would work OK. I am based on the edge of the Peak District, but only 15 or so miles from the centre of Manchester, so hardly in the wilds. Yet the mobile signal is patchy at best - you can just about get a signal by pushing the phone into the top corner of a bedroom window. I also spend a lot of time out of the country, so the card reader will come into its own then.

I still use a 'dumb' mobile phone, an inexpensive Nokia (£20) with PAYG sim; battery lasts over a week with, what I consider to be, moderate usage. However, the time will no doubt come when a smart phone will become a necessity to function in the 'modern' world. It will be no more an excuse to say that you don't have one than to say you cannot read and write. Until that day comes, I'm pleased to see that I am not the only one holding out.

[Lootman]

the time will no doubt come when a smart phone will become a necessity to function in the 'modern' world.

Which reminds me that the last time I had a problem with immigration at an airport was in Dublin a couple of years ago. The officer asked me for proof of my flight leaving Dublin (the next day) and also the airport hotel I claimed I had booked for that night. I don't bother printing such things out any more, as neither airlines nor hotels require it - they just need a passport and a booking number. So this threw me for a loop and I told him I had no such documents.

He then said "Well just show me the booking on your phone". My reply, that I did not have a phone, made him more suspicious. I suggested that he could call Aer Lingus and check my booking, but he clearly wanted me to make an effort, not him. After some further conversation he let me in anyway, and warned me to carry documentary proof of future travel. But I imagine 99% of people would have just pulled out their phone and that would have been the end of the problem.

So there may now be a broad perception that if you don't have a smart phone, there is something sketchy and suspect about you.