I wouldn't say I rail against all of life’s constraints, but the lack of control for customers of cellphone service in Canada has always made me crazy. This, then, is the story of one woman with minimal knowledge of cellphone technology on an all-consuming mission: To find an affordable phone that could be taken almost anywhere in the world with just the change of a SIM card. The term for this magical thing is an “unlocked world phone,” a phrase I’d never heard when the search got underway in May, but one which I’d become very familiar with in the research-filled weeks that followed. There’s nothing particularly exotic about an unlocked world phone, and in many countries they are a snap to buy. But this is Canada, and our cellphone companies work very hard to stop us from doing that. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back in those halcyon days two months ago, I had no idea of any of that. I had come back from Honduras wit...
I'm a communications strategist and writer with a journalism background, a drifter's spirit, and a growing sense of alarm at where this world is going. I am happiest when writing pieces that identify, contextualize and background societal problems big and small in hopes of helping us at least slow our deepening crises.