🚀 go-pugleaf

	My wife and I finally got cell phones a few years
ago, chiefly as an aid in potential emergencies.

	We don't actually eschew the occasional convenience,
but we normally keep them turned off. Jo may call home for a
ride from Metro when the train is running late and apt to
miss the bus; the passenger (not the driver!) may call ahead
to next destination on a trip to check in with ETA and/or
offer errands on the way; etc. We certainly don't use them
for any business purpose, nor even as a habit; we seldom
even carry them except while travelling or commuting.

	In fact, the batteries usually run down and have to
be recharged between times the phones are turned on.

	Nevertheless, the equipment is beginning to seem
antiquated, bulky, and heavy. (I don't think I own a shirt
with a pocket that would hold one of our phones comfortably
-- nor more than a very few with any pocket that will hold
one at all.)

	But, I'm told, the Maxi-Telco Lobby has owned its
congresscritters for so long that there's an actual law
against simply going out, buying new hardware, and replacing
your old with it. You have to get the replacement as part of
an upgrade -- including "upgraded"  service, at of course a
new rate -- or by opening a new account entirely.

	That law ought to be struck down and the authors of
it sentenced to durance vile for life, imnsho; but I'm too
old to pursue it.

	Such being the case, is there a deal that provides
reasonably small, light equipment to rock-bottom minimal
users (who do, however, call at times from way out of this
area to somewhere else also way out)?

-- 
RR 'Beartooth' Neuswanger
karhunhammas (at) lserv.com
Delenda est MegaSleaze!