Re: [SAGE] ATT Phones

[Phil Pennock <phil.pennock@globnix.org>]

On 2003-12-31 at 09:33 -0800, Daniel Rich wrote:
> I had really good luck with Verizon up until the past few months.  They 
> have just gotten too big to care about customers any more.  Also, they 
> have *no* bluetooth phones and no apparent plans to support bluetooth 
> in the forseable future (search google for bluetooth verizon for a 
> couple of good discussions on it).   Does anyone else find it odd that 
> they are selling a bluetooth headset at their stores when they don't 
> sell any phones that support it?

This is GSM?  If so, please excuse my market ignorance but why does the
set of offerings from the network provider matter?  Unless things are
massively different in the USA (which would be difficult if it's still
GSM), they sell the access via SIMs, either contract-based or pre-pay.
Which phone surrounds the SIM is fairly irrelevant, up until you're
looking at additional network services -- thus excluding Bluetooth
support as a relevant factor.

You'll probably have to pay more for a phone which isn't tied to a
particular SIM card, though.  Heh -- that can hurt a little.

I've had two personal phones and two work phones (one of each being the
same model) which were all sim-lock free.  GSM rocks.  But visiting the
USA at the end of 2002 for holiday plus LISA, I was disappointed at the
inavailability of pre-pay SIMs for GSM.  I wanted a cheap way of being
reachable for a couple of weeks.  I had to stick to my regular personal
SIM card, go easy on it and just wince as I burnt through the credits.
(Antenna coverage was weak on the main car-trip, but I didn't care.  I
can still close my eyes and see the beautiful scenery of northern PA).

Sounds like Bluetooth is now available though.  I was surprised at the
scarcity of that too -- I'm definitely not used to the USA being _more_
expensive for tech.  :^)
-- 
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." -- Richard P. Feynman