Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cell users abroad ask: What's the frequency?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 03:26:42 -0400

Posted on Mon, Aug. 11, 2003

Cell users abroad ask: What's the frequency?
And that's only the beginning: World phones, they learn, don't
work everywhere
BY SUSAN STELLIN
New York Times Service

For an executive used to having a cellphone practically grafted to
one ear, a business trip overseas presents some communication
challenges.

Although some wireless users in the United States have phones
that can be used abroad -- usually referred to as world or triband
phones -- phones that work in some countries do not necessarily
work in others.

And international phones don't always get the best coverage
outside metropolitan areas at home. Cellphones typically operate
using one of several network technologies while the standard
used in much of the world -- the Global System for Mobile
Communications, or GSM -- is just catching on in the United States.

But even then there's a catch: GSM networks in North America use
a different frequency than the two used in Europe and many other
countries (hence the need for a phone that is triband), and there
are plenty of other countries that do not use GSM.

Plus, while it's true that not all companies that operate networks
have roaming agreements, those that do know that global roaming
can prove expensive.

So how do companies with employees traveling overseas resolve
this set of problems?

''I would say they don't,'' said Derek Kerton, founder of the Kerton
Group, a consulting concern in San Jose, Calif., that focuses on
wireless technology.

Since most companies only have a limited number of employees
who travel abroad, he said, those employees often have to fend
for themselves.

''When the plane touches down, they press the on button and
cross their fingers,'' Kerton said. ``Or the office has one or two
GSM phones sitting around and when somebody goes to Europe,
they just pick up one.''

Pressing the on button and actually getting a signal overseas
would be likelier for travelers who have GSM phones as their main
phones in the States.

The drawback of traveling abroad with the same number you use
at home is that roaming charges can add up fast, up to several
dollars a minute, depending on your service plan and where you
are.

''Let's say you're tooling around Paris and you get a phone call
from your Cousin Larry, who wants to borrow your lawn mower;
that call cost you $5,'' Kerton said. ``And if . . . you can't get him
off the phone, it could be $10 or $15.''

For that reason -- or because they don't have GSM phones -- some
travelers purchase second phones just for international travel.

That's what Julie Pfeffer, an analyst with DuPont Capital
Management in Wilmington, Del., decided to do after realizing it
was getting too difficult to do business on trips abroad without a
phone. Her company has phones that employees can borrow for
trips overseas, but Pfeffer figured it was worth getting her own
since she takes six to nine trips a year abroad.

After much research, she bought an Ericcson GSM phone for $85
from Ustronics.com, one of many online sources that sells unlocked
triband phones.

(When a phone is unlocked, you can swap out the SIM card, the
memory chip in GSM phones that stores the user's subscriber data,
making it easy to switch providers or upgrade to a new phone.)

Pfeffer bought an SIM card and subscribed to an international
service plan from Verizon, which, she said, costs $10 a month plus
''pretty substantial'' per-minute rates for calls.

She explained that she needed the paper trail of a monthly plan to
file expenses.

A less expensive option would be to buy a SIM card for a particular
country, in effect a local service plan. Some people buy multiple
cards when traveling regularly to several countries.

''To me, the best strategy is to buy an SIM card in every country
you travel to frequently,'' said Nelson González, a management
consultant based in the Netherlands, where he is studying part
time. ``As soon as you land, you just pop in a card and you have a
local number.''

González has three SIM cards -- for Belgium, Britain and the United
States -- which, in his case, means three monthly service plans and
three phone numbers.

But once you have a GSM phone, you can buy prepaid SIM cards
for many countries after you land or before your trip, through
retailers like Telestial.com, a San Diego company that sells SIM
cards for more than 30 countries, as well as unlocked GSM phones.

With most SIM cards, incoming calls are free while you're in the
country you bought the card for. Rates for outgoing calls vary but
are cheaper for calls within, say, Italy using an Italian SIM card
than calling Frankfurt while you're in Florence (or calling back to
New York).

For those traveling to several countries who want to keep one
phone number, Telestial.com also sells a so-called Hop Abroad
service with rates of 35 cents a minute for incoming calls and 95
cents a minute for outgoing calls (plus 26 cents per outgoing call).
The SIM card for the plan costs $99, plus the cost of a GSM phone
if you don't already own one.

Carriers like AT&T, Cingular, Nextel and T-Mobile also have global
service plans for customers using GSM phones. Rates range from
one to several dollars a minute, depending on the plan and where
the subscriber is roaming.

Ken Grunski, president and founder of Telestial, usually travels
with prepaid SIM cards, and since incoming calls are free, he said,
'I call my office and say, `Hey, call me back.' ''

But with some business travelers, Grunski said, there is the OPM --
for other people's money -- factor.

''If it's OPM, people are a bit more laissez faire about how they're
going to save money,'' he said.

And then there are those travelers who manage just fine abroad
without cellphones. Rob Siegel, who works in sales for a
semiconductor company in Mountain View, Calif., relies on e-mail
while on trips to Japan, South Korea or Taiwan.

Those countries use different technologies, so he can't get a
phone that works everywhere. And to get a world phone in the
United States, he'd have to change service providers -- and get a
new number.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/6493774.htm

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 03:34:09 -0400

Does anybody remember the famous Network News Anchor that was mugged while leaving his studio years ago? The mugger
asked him what the frequency was for his program then he clocked him. Was it CBS or ABC ? And who was it?

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From: "Todd Ellis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 08:41:35 -0400

Dan Rather, CBS news - "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"  - R.E.M. made a hit
song from the whole thing.

Todd Ellis

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 3:34 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [NEXTEL-1] Cell users abroad ask: What's the frequency?

Does anybody remember the famous Network News Anchor that was mugged while
leaving his studio years ago? The mugger
asked him what the frequency was for his program then he clocked him. Was it
CBS or ABC ? And who was it?

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 14:34:33 -0400

Yea that's it!  Thx

Todd Ellis wrote:

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