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Man Gets Telephone Line After 27 Years
from the a-bit-of-a-wait dept
Last week we had a post about how mobile phones were catching on in Bangladesh. Well, back in 1976, mobile phones weren't an option for Mohammad Ismail in Bangladesh, so he applied for a normal telephone line and paid the permit fees. Twenty-seven years (and lots of complaints) later, he finally has a telephone line. The Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board claimed they lost his application, and then ignored most of his requests asking about his missing phone line. The local press picked up on the story last week, and miraculously, the application was "found". Getting the phone appears to be a bittersweet event for Ismail, who was quoted saying: "I am so happy. But I am a bit sad, also. When I applied, I was a young man of 33 and had dreams about owning my own telephone. Now all those dreams are gone. My children will use the phone now."
Reader Comments
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Typical Faire
It takes about 30 years for the average Egyptian to obtain an Egyptian passport. In the average Western European country or Japan, it takes 1-2 years to get a phone line, along with "permanent deposits" of about $1,000. In Haiti, it takes 2 hours to get a dial tone on the telephone.
Our problem is that our land lines work too well, so there is less incentive to use cell phones. Well, maybe if we make our cell phones so bad that it takes 2 years to get a new one, we'll invent some new technology better than a cell phone.
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Re: Typical Faire
This reminded me of an old Soviet Union Joke:
A factory worker finally scraped up enough money to buy a refrigerator. He was told it would be there in five years.
"Morning or Afternoon?", he asked.
"What do you mean? It's five years out, what does it matter?"
"I have a phone line being installed the same day."
(not great, but it was funny when I first heard it - back when there was a Soviet Union)
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Re: Typical Faire
cha! Being born in the Soviet Union this makes sense and IT IS funny (now, not then unfortunatelly)
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