Index
All field notes
Seven articles, each written to stand on its own. Dates are the publication day and the latest revision. Reading times are estimates for a careful pass, not a timer. If you only have one sitting, use a path below instead of reading in numerical order.
If you are about to land
SIM, then roaming, then the number you will send home.
Start with the counter checklist, then decide whether the home SIM stays on. Finish by sending +212 to the people who will call you.
If someone is hard to reach
Clock, then a lighter call, then one sentence for silence.
Put Morocco’s hour first. Agree voice if video stalls. The signal note explains the room. The data note explains why the video was the expensive part.
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01
How a mobile network is put together
The handset, the cell site, and the subscription, followed through one ordinary call. Includes what a network name on the screen is allowed to mean, and how to test a phone you did not buy in Morocco.
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02
Prepaid SIM notes
What to ask before you hand over a passport, how to leave with the number in both forms, and how to set a second SIM so the wrong line does not spend the data.
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03
Staying in touch
A message you can send before the call, three weights of conversation, and what to do for someone who only answers a normal ring.
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04
Reading mobile data use
Where the phone keeps its own count, where the operator keeps the pass, and an illustrated evening that shows why video and background backup dominate the total.
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05
Wi-Fi, hotspots, and calls
Home Wi-Fi, a shared café, a hotspot that spends the SIM, and how a riad, a flat, a café, and a bus each break a call for a different reason.
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06
Roaming, plainly
What to screenshot from your own operator before you fly, how a local SIM changes the number, and the same mechanism when a Moroccan line travels the other way.
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07
Signal indoors and outdoors
Why full bars can still fail, how to tell a wall from a crowd from a handset, and a ten-minute test for the room you will actually stand in.