hello Terry

I think "in general" you are correct. of course you can get satalite phone (cost you an arm and a leg) or those tri-band phone (don't know the cost of those).

but, if you stick with your 'normal everyday' phones:

USA phones will not work anywhere else. they have come out with a new phone, about 6 month ago, which is supposed to fix this.

german phones will work mostly anywhere, except in the USA.

the reason is, that the american cell phone system is differently designed then the rest of the world. the exact names and technical info i do not know.



>>> There has to be more to it than that.
>>
>>Hehe, that's what I thought about your posting when I finally managed to find that meager sentence between the copious quotes. ;-)
>>
>>I think the mentioned case is quite interesting because on the whole it seems that privacy standards are rather lax in the US (European privacy laws rate the US basically as third-world/unsafe and special vetting is required for exchanging sensitive data with partners in the US, aka the 'safe haven' rule).
>
>Europeans also have better personal encryption protections and gaurantees. European cell phones also [I've heard] will work any place in the world, except the US. US cell phones only work in US. Myth of fact?