Finally decided to get a cell phone with a monthly plan. Up until now, I've mostly had pay-as-you-go phones for personal use. It has actually worked out cheaper for me because I don't do a lot of talking on the phone; I give out my cell number to only a few people and don't do a lot of chatting.

I used to be required to have a cell phone for work, and I think that explains why I have sort of an aversion to them. At one point it was possible that I would have my work cell, the on-call cell, a pager in case they couldn't get a hold of me on either cell, and a personal cell. That's 3 cells and a pager, for one person. I still cringe whenever I hear the ringtone of my old work cell.

I've been cell phoneless for about a month now, ever since I ran my last one through the laundry. And I only had it for about 3 weeks. I should really buy big, brick-like, Soviet era military surplus cell phones so they are more noticeable in pants pockets.

Frankly, the real reason I've decided I need to get a cell again is that I'm playing around with Asterisk (an extremely powerful PBX telephony package, which doesn't begin to describe what it can really do) and I've found it a little difficult to tell if what I'm doing is working if I can't call it. I can't call from my home phone because the Asterisk system is connected to it.

I decided I wanted a camera phone this time. Don't need one, just think it would be handy to have a device that could take a really bad picture of some random boring event while I'm talking. Then I could send it to everyone I know.

I didn't like my options for a camera phone in pay-as-you-go world. Virgin Mobile had a decently priced camera phone, but if you want to transfer the pictures to your computer you have to upload them to a website for 50 cents a picture. I'm not interested in having the pictures that are stored on my phone held for ransom.

Bell Mobility had a decently priced PAYG plan and a good selection of phones, but the phones were all more expensive than I wanted to pay. It looks like they aren't willing to subsidize the price of phones for PAYG plans in the hopes of recovering the cost later.

I finally went with a basic monthly package from Telus. With a one year contract I was able to get a free camera phone. I got an email from them today letting me know that it is being shipped, so I'll find out exactly how good a free camera phone is early next week, I guess.