Awaydays Blog Post 4: The Phoney War

Last time Susan and I were in Australia we brought our little Wiko brick phones and my "big" phone that we only used for satnav. Unfortunately, even though France still hasn't turned off it's 2G, Australia did that ages ago. This meant we had to shift the SIM card from one of the little phones into the big phone and work like that.

This time we boxed clever, brought our French 4G phones, and on our first day here (traumatically and expensively) bought an Australian SIM card for one of them. That worked great for 24 hours, giving us phone calls, texts, and data - and then it suddenly died. No amount of changing settings, putting the SIM in different slots (and different phones) made any difference.

A picture of a beach to help me de-stress.

It transpires that Australia turned off its 3G system on Friday. I knew that was coming. What we (and many other people) didn't know is that it also turned off parts of the 4G system, rendering all but the most expensive 4G phones brought in from overseas useless. (France is planning to turn off 3G in 2027)

After much debate, we eventually bought, for $127, a new, Australian mobile phone. It might also work in France, it might not. We're using it for texts and phone calls, but also as a USB hotspot, meaning that both of us can use our phones for everything except for phoning and texting.

Another picture of a beach. It's not working.

We have now spent a day and a half of our visit sorting out phones. We are peeved.