> ... Or maybe
> it means a completely different phone, which radically reduces the
> acceptability for Japanese tourists. Not that this is a barrier for
> Americans in Hawaii, but it's on a whole different scale of investment
> to reach them.
A stupid question -- Does the I-mode system have a GSM-like SIM card that
has the account information and can be moved from one phone to another?
The areas in the US I've mostly visited there's a decent GSM-1900 coverage
and it makes sense for me to use my GSM SIM in a GSM-1900 phone while there.
Unfortunately I couldn't find any decent company or carrier that could rent
the US phone efficiently enough. Most rent phones where those ugly black
bricks connected to some bizarr analog or digital network. No thank you.
Eventually we ended up buying a Motorola tri-band TimePort for the US visits
although it has has the worst user interface on this planet. Nowadays the
options for GSM-1900 or dual/tri-band phones are decent and I guess it's a
bit too late for decent rental GSM market.
Even if I was travelling once a year I would still consider international
roaming a must for a mobile phone system. Dual/tri-band phones obviously
make life easier but I could life with a decent rental options to cover the
most exotic regions (like US ;-).
Petri
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Sat Apr 7 12:53:44 2001