To ALL : Some advantages of GSM SIM card approach
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Wireless Phones Are Poised
To Start Roaming World-Wide
By ELIZABETH JENSEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
A wireless phone that can be used almost anywhere in the world: That has
long been on the wish list of jet-setting business travelers who hate having to
juggle different handsets for different countries.
Now that wish is coming true -- sort of. In the next few months, several
companies, taking advantage of shrinking electronics, plan to introduce
phones that will work in the U.S. as well as in much of Europe, Asia, the
Middle East and Australia. That means U.S. travelers to Europe or Asia
won't have to rent a handset when stepping off the plane, and vice versa. All
those numbers stored electronically in the phone will travel with them as
well.
The new phones work on the digital GSM (Global System for Mobile
Communications) technology. The multiband phones are necessary because
not all GSM systems operate on the same radio frequency. European and
Asian GSM is available on the 900 megahertz and, in some places, the
1,800 megahertz frequencies, while in the U.S., GSM is found on the 1,900
megahertz frequency.
Today, frequent foreign travelers resort to a hodgepodge of solutions. Some
U.S. wireless carriers that use the GSM standard, such as Omnipoint
Corp., will rent subscribers handsets that work on the European
frequencies. But users must remove a tiny card known as the SIM card (for
Subscriber Identity Module) from their U.S. handset into the European one.
European and Asian airports also rent handsets to visitors from overseas
who remember to bring along their SIM card. Some companies have solved
the problem by buying phones for different continents for executives to take
with them on trips, but that means a new number to give out.
"I want to have one number and one phone," says Jeff Brugos, a San
Francisco-based partner in Price Waterhouse's management-consulting
practice, who spends half his time in Asia and Europe and is extremely
interested in having a phone that works world-wide.
The current system is "a royal inconvenience," says David C. Lee, a
managing director at Lazard Freres & Co., noting, "Not only do you have to
carry a different phone, you have to have directly signed up with a service
provider in Europe so you can use the phone." Mr. Lee says he usually
takes a colleague's phone when traveling, but often forgets.
For U.S.-based travelers, there is one hitch with the phones: Although GSM
is by far the dominant standard in Europe and is widely available in Asia, in
the U.S. it is just getting started. While the number of GSM users
world-wide more than doubled last year to a current 70.2 million, in the
U.S. there are about 1.5 million subscribers. Many U.S. GSM providers
have been offering service for just a year, and their networks aren't fully
built.
Some major U.S. cities don't have GSM service at all because the license
holder for those systems, Pocket Communications Inc., is in bankruptcy
proceedings. That means a GSM user could hop from Paris to New York
to Hong Kong with the same phone, but would be out of luck in Chicago,
New Orleans, or Dallas/Ft. Worth. Ditto for most of Latin America.
Moreover, the new phones won't help U.S. customers who subscribe to the
most-common cellular services, which use an older, analog technology, or
other newer digital systems such as some "PCS" networks. Unlike many
countries, the U.S. never set a wireless standard, though manufacturers are
trying to create phones that would bridge many or all of these systems.
Still, for many business travelers, the new GSM phones could be a vast
improvement. Two German handset producers, Robert Bosch Gmbh and
Siemens AG, have announced plans to introduce phones that work on the
900 and 1,900 frequencies. The Bosch phone, to be distributed in the U.S.
by Audiovox Corp., will be on the market in the second quarter, while the
Siemens phone is scheduled to arrive by summer.
Sweden's Telefon AB LM Ericsson has told carriers it will have a phone in a
900/1,900 version in the fourth quarter, and next year for all three GSM
frequencies. A spokesman says the technology needs refinement, but
eventually, "We feel it is going to be one of the biggest product hits among
high-end business users."
Not everyone agrees. Finland's Nokia Corp. says the market for such
phones is too small to merit attention. "When the market is big enough, we
will have a product," says Jyrki Salo, vice president, Americas, Nokia
Telecommunications.
Handset makers and carriers are still discussing prices, but the phones aren't
expected to cost consumers more than a few hundred dollars -- and maybe
substantially less.
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