Take it from someone who just got off the boat from Europe, American mobile services is catching up and *fast* in terms of service and accessiblity. I’m amazed at how easy it is to get a cellphone here in the U.S. now – the same as how amazed I was back in 2000 how easily you could in Europe.
I’ve mainly been interested in the GSM providers here, but even the CDMA guys have made it pretty damn easy as well. First, the stores are all incredibly accessible here. In the past few days I’ve been to T-Mobile, Cingular, AT&T Wireless, RadioShack and MetroPCS stores. All have had some neat phones on display, lots of different plans to choose from and most importantly the first three had easy to buy pre-pay SIMs so I could just start talking without having to deal with a contract. That said, there are still some nits. Here’s my thoughts on the past few days exploring the options for GSM here in the Bay Area… [Russell Beattie Notebook]
a multi-tasked stream of consciousness or perhaps just emails to myself