I thought I would take this opportunity to address some questions posted by shawn.
While I am quite confident that i wireless will eventually launch 2.5G (EDGE) and/or 3G technology, I have no dates or specifics to share. As an early-adopter (or wannabe-early-adopter) myself, I understand the interest in this, but as an i wireless insider, I am not going to leak any of i wireless' future plans on this blog.
Same goes for the international roaming question -- Probably will happen at some point, but I can't say for sure.
I would like to point out that you have always been able to take select i wireless phones with you and use them in overseas GSM markets. First, make sure that you have a phone that operates on 900 & 1800 MHz (typically referred to as a "quad-band" phone, because it works on four bands total, including 850 & 1900, which is what is used in the U.S.). Then all you have to do is buy a prepaid SIM when you reach your destination and slip it into your phone.
It's been years since I've been outside the U.S., but I've been told that prepaid SIMs are readily available in most major international airports and many are more economical than what you would probably pay for international roaming with a U.S. carrier. Of course, you won't have your same phone number, but I guess you have to decide what's more important to you.
3 comments:
Thanks for at least letting me know that there are people inside iWireless that even know these technologies exist... sometimes after dealing with a company's "customer service" face for long enough its refreshing that there is at least a few who know whats going on.
I've never used an official iWireless headset, but I'm glad to know that they're offering quad/tri band phones. I'm hopeful they'll add international roaming at some point, and we'll see. I've used many-a prepaid SIM card, but thats pricey up front, not to mention many countries don't sell SIM cards to foreigners (Japan for instance) but do support UMTS 2100 roaming (which my phone headset supports). Its annoying to have my phone list available networks in a country like Japan, but refuse to connect :) (expecially when you're lost somewhere and really need to call someone regardless of how expensive it will end up being).
My notes on international roaming apply largely to Europe. I know different flavors of GSM exist in other parts of the world, but I am not as familiar with them. A quad-band (850/900/1800/1900) device is not going to work at the 2100 MHz frequency that NTT DoMoCo uses in Japan. It will be interesting to see how/if that is integrated into "world phones" in the future.
True, but I have a headset thats 1800/2100 UMTS in addition to tri-band (850MHz, what an American joke) and had I had a SIM from Cingular would have roamed just fine.
Found a DoCoMo signal amost the entire time except in the mountains.
-Shawn
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