@ Large: And God Created GSM

Jim Gilbert would move to Europe just to take advantage of their fabulous portable phone technology...but he would rather use the bathrooms in America.

GSM technology runs circles around, over, and under anything the USA offers. Compared with GSM, my Alltel CDMA (Cave Dweller's Mobile Assistant) gizmo is a joke, and not a funny one.

For example, two weeks ago in Estonia my dinner host parked in Tallinn's old town, dialed an electronic attendant, punched in his minivan's tag number, and paid his parking fee by phone. Marconi would have declared it wrought by God! Bell would have said, 'Come here Watson. You gotta see this.' Edison would have spoken in tongues!

And that's not all. European phone users roam seamlessly from country to country, and upgrading to a new phone is a simple matter of moving a tiny chip from one's old phone to the new one. Oh, T-Mobile and Cingular offer an American version of GSM in the States, but coverage is spotty. In fact, a T-Mobile GSM phone here in the USA is a little like a car with a navigation system in Bethel, Alaska: You can drive up and down that lone, two-mile road and never get lost!

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