The silence is broken with manic laughter.

I’ve just spent half an hour on the phone to Vodafone to change my bank details. I have a very nifty USB wireless modem through them.

So I get on the phone and am confronted with “please just tell me what you want to do” from an automated system. It doesn’t work all that well unfortunately and eventually — after telling me to be clearer and to be in a room that’s not too noisy because noise confuses it — transferred to a more traditional press-a-number-to-get-where-you-need-to-be.

10 minutes passes while I’m told that my call is important, they’re sorry, they’re really busy and please don’t hang up.

When I finally get to speak with a human being, I’m told that I need to be transferred to data services rather than voice services.

Another 5 minutes pass with the same result as mentioned above.

I am then transferred to someone else and told that “sorry, I need to be transferred to accounts and billing”.

5 more minutes and I’m at Accounts and Billing, and promptly asked what my mobile phone number is.

Just a side-note here, the device doesn’t have a readable phone number. It’s a SIM inside a lump of plastic. That’s it.

Ah, says the sri-lankan at the other end.

He informs me confidently that I can change all this information on the website, www…

My response is that I wouldn’t have wasted 20 minutes sitting on hold if I could do that, and I don’t have sufficient information about the account to do that.

So we go through the identify-the-punter process (first name, last name, password (I got it wrong apparently) drivers license number, blood-type (I’m lying, but it might have helped)) before I get to the point where I can give him the bank account details so they can get their $40 a month.

Then comes the fun part.

Problem: I don’t want to be stuck on-hold for 20 minutes in future if and when I need to change something, so I’d like to do all this online.

Solution: He gives me the phone number and instructions on how to enter it all in and get the logon information sent via SMS to the SIM card in the modem.

Problem: It’s a Modem, it can’t receive SMS messages

Solution: Install the software on the CD that came with the device that enables the device to receive SMS messages.

Problem: The software only works on PC and I don’t own a PC.

Solution: Put the modem SIM into my phone and receive the SMS message that way.

Problem: I have an iPhone locked to Optus so the modem SIM won’t work.

Solution: Find a phone that’s unlocked and stick the SIM in that.

Problem: I don’t have a phone that’s unlocked. I have an iPhone. Why would I keep another phone?

Solution: Find a PC to install the software onto.

Problem: I don’t have a PC and I don’t know anyone with one within walking distance.

Solution: Unlock the iPhone.

Problem: It’s locked to Optus for 2 years and can’t be unlocked.

Solution: Find a phone that is unlocked…

We both had a good laugh about this. Really. And he explained that these are the only two solutions available…