Hello. Hello. Can you hear me?

Trying to make a phone call in Iraq is one of the most difficult, frustrating, time-consuming and frequently futile activities I have ever experienced.
The network is terrible, the signal patchy at best and a number often needs to be dialed three or four times before a connection is made, and even then the call usually gets cut short.
For example, a conversation with The Times in London usually goes like this:
Foreign desk (answering phone): Hello, foreign.
Me (on mobile phone): Hello. It’s Debbie here in Baghdad.
Foreign desk: Hello, foreign?
Me: Hello. Hello. It’s Debbie here in Baghdad
Foreign desk: Er, hello-o??
Me: Hello. Hello HELLO-OOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Foreign desk: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.
Me: HELLO HE-
Foreign desk (hangs up phone)
Me (throws phone on floor muttering unprintable expletives)

A real blood-boiler is when you hear the recorded female voice that says, in smooth American English and also Arabic, something along the lines of: “I’m sorry but the mobile you are calling is either switched off or out of the coverage area. Please try again later”.
At least when that voice speaks it means you have managed to make a call.
More often than not my two Iraqi mobile phones – with different equally temperamental servers – fail even to let me dial.
Ominous signs that things are going wrong include hitting the call button only to see the screen revert straight back to its standby mode rather than look as though it is calling a number.
Another indicator is when you press dial and the screen freezes on the dialed number with the deceptively optimistic word “Calling…” displayed across the top, only for nothing to happen.
Five bars in ascending height on the top of the mobile phone screen tell you what sort of signal you have. However, they also frequently disappear without warning turning your mobile phone into a good for nothing brick (see photograph).
Such all-out failure could be because of a military operation taking place nearby or just because the network feels like stopping for a bit.
Even when you do get through to someone on the other end, a conversation often becomes a ballet dance as you bend and twirl in a frantic bid to get a decent enough signal to hear at least every other word.
And, on the rare occasion that the phone line is clear it will typically cut out after about 10 minutes, leaving the caller and the called shouting “Hello? Hello?” or (if they are Iraqi) “’Allo? ‘Allo?” to an unresponsive silence.
If that is not enough, texting adds a whole other dimension to the frustration.
Messages often don’t send and when they do they can take hours to arrive.
The system kindly lets you know when a message has been sent and – on at least one of the networks – delivered, which is useful when it actually functions.
Sadly last night my mobile phone decided to stop letting me send text messages altogether. In desperation, I resorted to my UK mobile to message a friend also in Baghdad only to learn that such texts can take days to materialize at the other end.
Gripes aside, a bad mobile phone network is better than nothing at all.
When I was first in Iraq in early 2004 we used to use walkie-talkies to communicate in Baghdad and satellite phones if we ventured further afield.
Also, for most Iraqis, owning a mobile phone – even a rubbish one – is a novelty because they were unable to do so during Saddam Hussein’s time.
Now, the mobile phone industry is one of the few sectors that is thriving, with mobile use rising to 8 million out of a population of 26 million at the end of 2006, from virtually nothing three years earlier.

Comments

[bryan]

I would have thought getting blown up by a roadside bomb or having American military storming your house at 3 in the morning might rate as quite annoying, but have to say the phone thing probably tops it.

[Tom]

It's a war zone for Christ's sake - what do you expect?!

Sounds like you've got better reception than most of rural England...

Amazed you'd risk beheading to write blogs on global mobile signals!

[Tom]

ok, feeling guilty - read the other articles... well done - glad i'm not there

[Tim]

Oh dear - life must be so tough for you poor girl.

[Richard]

Deborah I think you need some decent technical support, would avoid that Tom bloke though.. complete charlatan.

[Farrukh]

Can't make the phones work, get clean drinking water, safe housing, etc but somehow are able to pump out millions of barrels of oil... hmmm.

[Eric Leon]

Should have tried being a soldier during OIF II. One hour wait was short to get a VOIP line to tell your loved ones you were not dead and do all that in 10 minutes or less.

[Maggie Stone]

yea well when trying to talk to your son its hell...... i have better luck on the computer, and i chated more whith him, and yes he has saved all the phone cards for a tax deduction.
iraq cell phones suck.

[Keith]

#Deborah,
Why not get the power of SKYPE and short circuit the phone system using the internet?

[Richard Evans]

I sympathise with Debbie Haynes although those of us who worked in the days before mobile phones had our own set of problems. Vying with three other colleagues to get a call out of Sofia in 1957 was heart-palpitating to say the least -- especially as you could hardly hear when it came through. Stories are legion but my favourite concerns the great macho Daily Express foreign correspondent Robin Stafford who spent hours risking life and limb to get a call through from some war-torn city and, having finally connected to the Express's notoriously gay switchboard, yelled against the backdrop of gunfire, "Get me the bleep, bleep foreign desk!".
"Don't talk to me like that," came the mincing reply, followed by a click.

[Bill Peter]

This reminds me of the old Monty Python sketch. I can imagine ordinary Iraquis reading this, then replying "LUXURY".

[Bill Peter]

I wonder what the dead Japanese photographer would have complained about from Burma. Not a chipped nail, dry hair or poor mobile reception, I bet.

[George]

For God's sake who is this twit? If this is a sign of her intelligence and she is the Times correspondent for Iraq then I will not believe a word written in future. And why the hell doesn't she go somewhere where the phones work and people aren't being killed everyday?

[Zappy Corleone]

Phones in Iraq are a Joke, I used to carry two handsets from two providers and it was so irritating when you had an emergency and needed just a minute!
the best thing in such an Emergency is to get yourself a Thraya Sattilite phone.

[Robert]

If a suicide bomb went off in a Western capital it would, of course, be massive news. However, I suspect it would also be pretty big news if all the mobile networks went down. I'm not for a moment suggesting the two incidents are even vaguely comparable, but it does beg the question as to why a story about Iraq has to focus on the violence and bloodshed in order to carry legitimacy? The bombings and the killings have been reported - by journalists on the front line, like Deborah - for the past four years and yet the West seems to have become increasingly desensitized to it. All too often, the passing of the latest Iraqi atrocity is merely acknowledged with a few column inches towards the back of the broadsheets. Stories like this provide colour and context to what is going on in Iraq and besides, it's a blog and surely its purpose therefore is to record the daily experiences of the author, not necessarily focus only on "hard" news (although reading some of the other posts, it's obvious that the author has been reporting her fair share of that as well). Might I suggest that the armchair commentators like George and Bill - no doubt writing from the comfort of their PCs somewhere in Middle England - leave this blog to those of us who have a genuine interest in finding out about every-day life in Iraq, beyond the normal diet of rhetoric, bombs and murder. Keep up the good work Deborah, you are a credit to your profession.

[Mark Cooper]

I never cease to be amazed by how ignorant some people are that post on these things. Are you completely unable to see that Deborah is trying to portray the complete story about living and working in Iraq rather than just the headline-grabbing stories of hysteria that seem to constitute news these days. Perhaps fewer juvenile quips and more words of support would be a better idea. I know I wouldnt be brave to do what she does each day, and I have the utmost respect for what she does. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to reading more.

[don veto]

to fix the phone network in Iraq, let the rebels stop shooting the cell towers, let the americans stop using frequencies that interfere with the mobile network, guarantee the security of the engineers and technicians that go out to fix the war damaged equipment, stop using mobile jammers that neuter road side bombs. Simple, right?

you've obviously never been to zimbabwe love. clearly.

[John]

Debs,

Your phone is well out of date - I bet you as not evan got polyphonic ringtone. Dem Irakis gonna fink you totally behind the times. Remember you is reprazentin yur country an ting - get decent fone aye?

Abdul Mahmood

[Herkan Neadan Toppo]

Mobile phone can be a life line for the number of iraqi families living in the disasterous situation. this may bring some kind of relief and give hope to carry on with the life.

[Tony Cossey]

get a satellite phone at

http://www.iridium.com/

For war zones there is no substitute

[Beryl]

I can't talk or receive calls on my mobile when at home. Text messages get through, and I can send a reply to the text if I stand out in the middle of the field. Warzone? Nope. Just a few miles outside of Windsor!

[Jason]

@#$%........O'dear!

[lee h]

Fair one Debbie i was trying to make a call last night , am now laughing as it took about 10 attempts! i've worked here for 3 years and its good to see a different angle of portrayal, rather than ego related gunslinging type stories. Welldone

[C Boffard]

If you're going to write something that's been done 50 times before, do it with a significant new angle, some new local research or insight, or at least some new humour. That was something written for the East Grimsby Church Gazette by a local housewife. If you think she may one day be a journalist with some professional - or at least adult - judgement, for God's sake get some mentoring for this fool.