http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/13/technology/personaltech/cellphones.reut/index.htm
*U.S. cell phones sputter and fail in an apartment near the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, a U.S. agency created to set consistent standards, and in ranch houses in the Los Angeles suburbs. A land line is a necessity.
Europeans can skip fixed lines altogether. Why bother? A GSM works nearly everywhere -- not just in houses, apartments and offices but at the bottom of a salt mine in Poland or on a wind-swept beach in County Donegal in northwest Ireland. The only real problem occurs on trains.
GSM includes the short messaging system (SMS), which works on every phone in Europe. Some Americans have SMS or BlackBerry Wireless, but not everyone. *
Europeans can skip fixed lines altogether. Why bother?
The only real problem occurs on trains.
Or in the mountains.
Or old buildings.
The D/+ (900/1800) networks in Europe are better than what goes on in the U.S. and what went on here 10 years ago, but claiming that you can ditch land lines for good is risible.
Current technology still has huge issues with mountaineous regions or old buildings with "menacing" structure (scoria-concrete was quite popular for some time, np).
Landlines is for internet, until WiFi gets reliable and fast enough.
I like how I can call US cellphones from Europe for less charges than regular phones in the EU, not to speak of the horribly overcharged prices for calling cell phones within Europe.
>>3
...or affordable enough, or until a broad enough userbase is interested in it, or until flat rates are available, yes yes.
only that in some places, wifi is regressing again (no comment...) because it's unaffordable / didn't evoke much interest. The N(ational)R(ailways) have recently (2 months ago) shut down their WiFi offers on trains and stations, because next to no-one was interested in it.
>>4
what kind of crazy phone provider IS that? calling (any kind of) phones in the U.S. would cost me $2.50 per minute, Europe $2.00, national cell phones and regular phones $0.50 per minute, same provider $0.25.