>>Jon - I've used a tri band GSM phone here in US for 3 years, with much travel around to Italy, UK and China. I get coverage in US no matter where I am, have yet to find a pocket where its not 'working'.
>>T-mobile is just one carrier, there are others.
>>I find the exact opposite of your opinion to be true.
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>Bill,
>
>I gladly stand corrected. I know that GSM works just fine outside of the US because that is the network of choice abroad. When you travel in the US, do you only go to metropolitan areas where coverage is pretty much guaranteed or other remote parts of the country as well? If you look at T-Mobile's coverage map (as compared to Verizon's, for example) you'll notice quite a bit of the country being outside their coverage area.
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>Laterness,
>Jon

Jon - I think the thing that makes the difference here is that my phone is tri-band . For example, when I was in Grand Canyon, it auto-switched to another provider that covered the area. When I returned to Vegas, it auto-switched back to my original carrier. My contract currently gives me free roaming in CONUS, but that wasn't the case 3 years ago.

When I travel overseas, I always buy a prepaid SIM card from a local cell provider. My collection is getting big these days - the most COLORFUL pack was from China Unicom.

The 'original' standard of GSM prety much meant an 'incompatibility with all US CARRIERS' but since dual band came out, that problem went away.
Most people buy their handphones / cell phones diretly from a cell service provider - I do not do that - I usually collect some fairly techie phones that either won't come to market in US or do come out from a carrier a year after the manufacturer introduced them.

mondo regards [Bill]

PS - on a different note - GOSH - I wish I could change the title here.
and FORK THIS THREAD.