And you thought the call centers were only outsourced in the US?

I think Uncle G. knows from his experience with a certain computer maker that companies today are outsourcing their support center work to workers in other countries. I cringe when I hear his story of being on the line for several hours and not getting his problem resolved.

Well: hey, even France outsources its support centers. I'd heard that my cable company outsources its technical support to Tunisia, but today was the first time since I've been in France that I've encountered such a thing when I called my mobile service provider.

After six months of owning a phone, you can have it "unlocked" (deverouillage), which will allow you to use that phone on any network within Europe (or in the case of tri-band phones, anywhere in the world that uses those frequencies.)

If you don't unlock the phone, when you put the SIM card chip from a rival operator into the phone, you will not be able to make calls from that phone. Although I expect to keep using this phone for the time being, I thought that it would be a good idea to unlock the phone since it would allow me to use chips from other companies (and not just other companies in France: I can now use a chip from the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and so forth).

So I called the service center using Skype. (Calling from a mobile phone I would be charged 0,48 EUR / minute; calling from Skype (oddly enough), I was only charged 0,16 EUR / minute). The first time I got through, I spoke to a French operator, but the call got dropped by Skype halfway through. I called again, and within 30 seconds (thank goodness! nothing like being charged for being on hold!), a service agent with a thick accent came on the line. Mind you, he spoke perfect French, but the pronunciation was accented and he had a tendency to roll his r's, like in Spanish.

We got through the formalities (I gave him my address and phone number and date of birth, for confirmation), and he soon gave me the code necessary to unlock the phone. Within five minutes I was finished and was set to unlock the phone.

I thanked him and he closed the call courteously, leaving me impressed with the service that my provider offers. Fine to outsource the work if the overseas center provides you with the information you need.

And the phone?

Following a certain procedure (generally you put in a SIM card from a rival operator that the "locked" phone doesn't recognize), I then entered the eight-digit code that I had been provided with and within seconds, the phone became"unlocked." I can still use the SIM card that I have inside the phone, but now I can use any other card in it, as well. Very convenient! So in the time, any time you guys want to borrow a phone when you're travelling through Europe ..!