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Technology Sanity Check #224
Does Your Cellphone Work
Internationally?
by Ray Strackbein
I read an advertisement for a cellphone service provider. It said you could use their regular cellphone in the United States and in other countries.
Many countries have their own cellphone rules, frequencies, and technologies.
The rest of the world decided on a universal standard, but the United States did its own thing. Most of the world uses one standard.
The United States uses about 10 different, competing, incompatible standards. So, implying that you can use a regular United States phone throughout the world is ludicrous.
The advertisement said you could use your usual cellphone in select other countries when you subscribed to their service.
As a distracter, the advertisement said that when you are not traveling, you can place calls from your phone to any country in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and Australia.
It continued -- using Canada as an example. To use your phone in Canada, just dial as you normally would.
People call you at your usual United States cellphone telephone number. Almost any cellphone will work this way in Canada because Canada uses the same cellphone standards as the United States.
Finally, the bottom of the advertisement said that the select countries where you can use their cellphone are limited to Bermuda and Hong Kong at this time.
What it didn't tell you, is that some competing cellphone companies will sell you a global cellphone that will work in almost every major city in the world, including the United States.
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Some people say you can't believe everything you read. I say, don't see what you want to believe in an advertisement. See what is really there.
Copyright © Ray Strackbein
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