Who you gonna call?

The one thing I can't understand about Cayman is the way the phone plans work here. Be it a land line or a cell phone, they each have calling rates that are billed by the minute. It's very similar to England (so I've heard) and of course, India (from what I remember from the younger days). Landlines here are about 3 cents a minute to call another land line (after the initial 9c/min for the first minute), but to call a cell phone it's about 22c/min. And this is all locally within Grand Cayman and the sister islands, so you can just about imagine what international calling rates are like.

While Cayman does have post paid cell phone plans, its minutes are peanuts compared to what you actually pay and once you go over your monthly quota, the per min rates pretty much end up costing you an arm and a leg. And so, most here in Cayman opt out for prepaid phones, which unlike Bermuda, allows you to call overseas numbers. In Bermuda you'd have to sign up with a long distance company before you can gain access to even think about dialing a 1-800 number, if that. But unlike Cayman, Bermuda's cell phone plans do incorporate unlimited evenings and weekends for an extra $10/month. This is virtually unheard of in Cayman. There's no unlimited anything! All these restrictions will sure curb one's talkative habit, but there are ways to beat the system. Google Talk and MSN Messenger sure are the popular choice here, because it's free. However, the one thing that Cayman does have that Bermuda doesn't is free incoming calls on your cell phone, which can be pretty neat if every one's calling you all the time. The less phone credit you use is a clear indication of how popular you are.

So, is there such a thing as mobile heaven? Sure is! It's called Canada, where evenings and weekends area regular features, along with free incoming calls, where there are no charges to call a cell phone from a land line. It's the best of both the worlds of Bermuda & Cayman.