I-Phone dilemma, telecoms giant impoverishes Thais

I was entering the condo as the boyfriend was going out to pay bills.

'I am also going to ask the telephone company about buying an I-Phone,' he said.

Maiyuu has seen advertisements on television for Apple I-Phone.

Our satellite TV provider, True Move, is offering phone deals to its television subscribers, via its telephone subsidiary, True Mobile.

Parent company True Corporation announced last November that it had reached a deal with Apple to import the 3G I-Phone to Thailand.

I don't like these vertically integrated telecoms companies...they always have some new deal, some new way for you to waste money. Be that as it may, Maiyuu, who is at home most of the day, saw one of these ads, and decided he would like an I-Phone.

I am not keen on the idea, as I can't see the point. Where once he had many friends, now no one calls, and he hardly calls them. So there goes the usefulness of the phone part of the appliance.

'Oh, I can surf the internet,' he says.

Again, I ask, what's the point, when he has his own computer in his room, with internet access.

Who wants a boyfriend with his head buried all day in a cellphone/mini- computer, or whatever it is? This assumes, of course, that the novelty will last, and that he won't get sick of the thing after the first few weeks.

Most importantly is that I would have to pay. From memory, the thing costs about B23,000 and True is offering it on time payment - payments of B900 a month or so for 24 months.

What a colossal waste! I am not sure yet how Maiyuu proposes to pay for the thing. 'I will spend less on grocery items and food,' he told me as he set out this morning.

True is impoverishing hard-working Thais who can't afford satellite TV, but whose red satellite dishes you can nonetheless find scattered on the roofs of many slum houses in Bangkok.

At my last place in Thon Buri, I overlooked a collection of slum houses - little better than tin shacks - built along a railway line. I could count at least 10 True satellite dishes from where my place stood.

My boyfriend is not a hard-working Thai, if you assume that looking after me at home is easy (he would dispute that).

Nonetheless, he is hardly bringing in a wage, so I would have to pay for this dreadful device myself, if Maiyuu goes ahead as threatened and buys the thing.

'You can't want to go overseas with me, then,' I said in an SMS this morning.

'You already have a computer in your room - what a waste of money. If my income should take a dive, who will take responsibility for paying it off? You will have to get a job,' I said.