Behind the curve
July 13th, 2007 by Jon BarkanIf someone came up to me on the street and told me that the United States was the greatest country on earth, I couldn’t argue with them. If someone came up to me and said that pizza was the greatest junk food on earth, I would agree with them. I’d especially agree with them if it’s from Ray’s on 12th and 7th Ave. in NYC or Giordano’s in Chicago.
But if someone came up to me and said that the U.S. has the best cell phone setup of anyone in the world, I would definitely argue with that theory.
Let me start with the fact that I just got back from Israel, and they blow us out of the water in so many ways.
- First, everyone has a cell phone and they are constantly on them. The prices are very cheap for cell service and everyone takes full advantage of it.
The funny part is that no one in Israel knows how to turn their phone on vibrate. Go there and see how many cell phone types of rings you can hear in a day. My guess is I heard about 10-15 different ones a day for two weeks.We went to Yad Vashem, which is a Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.  A person tells you to shut your phones off as you walk in. Within a minute of being in the museum, someone’s phone started to ring. *Just a tad annoying*
- Next, let’s talk about how all the phones are unlocked around the world, except in the U.S.So for those of you with iPhones, enjoy your time with AT&T for your two-year contract.Â
The only company that allows you to unlock your phone is T-Mobile and even then you have to have a business contract or have your phone for a certain amount of time before they will do so.When I went to China a few years ago, I bought an unlocked Motorola V60 and it’s great to travel the world with because it’s almost more than half the cost of turning on your American phone and using it.You can buy unlocked phones online, but it will cost you more. You can also go online and unlock your phones with different kinds of services, but it will still cost you a few bucks.
- Finally, let’s talk about the fact that I had better cell service standing on the borders of Syria, Lebanon and Israel than I have in Atlanta, Georgia.
I was at full bars for 90 percent of my trip, and I never once dropped a call. As if that wasn’t enough, when we drove through the West Bank by Jordan, my service switched to a Jordanian carrier. You know how I know that? They sent me a text message to welcome me. They also sent me text messages to offer me a chance to win $10,000 U.S. and a kilo of gold. And when I was leaving their coverage area, they texted me to thank me for driving through their area.Tell me the last time Verizon did that?
We may be ahead of the curve in many areas, but we aren’t even close to being on the backstretch when it comes to cell phones.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Couldn’t agree more. Notice how almost all US carriers use a business model based on charging you ridiculous fees until a large enough consumer base revolts? I have to assume that American politics are somewhat to blame here — how else but lobbying could companies continue to charge hundreds of dollars in “upgrade fees” when buying a new phone or “cancellation fees” when you’re trying to escape their horrible service?
For example, free nights and weekends are also uncommon abroad because they’re based on meaningless, marketing-driven concepts of when cell phone use is more valuable.
Reminds me of when companies like AOL used to charge for Internet access by the hour. If only Vonage broke into the cell phone market…
July 17th, 2007 at 11:12 am
How accurate you are! What’s sad is that the carries, not the people are driving the market, and unfortunately slowing it down.
Do you remember Penny from Inspector Gadget? And her magical, can-do-anything-in-the-world book? Well, apparently they have cell phones like this in Japan and I would KILL to have one of those… but sadly it doesn’t work in the states.
People are slowly figuring it out. T-movile is pushing for wifi cell phone calls, Vontage is pushing phone carriers aside, and MagicJack is pushing Vontage aside (slowly)…
I sure can’t wait for that Go-go-gadget-phone! =D
July 24th, 2007 at 6:43 am
I completely agree as well. I really thought the US would have better cell phone services, but after having spent a week in Santa Monica and Napa, CA, I’m quite happy to be back in Europe (cell phone wise). Most of the time, I had no coverage, or maybe one bar, and I could just forget about using WAP or my Opera Mini browser. In Napa, I was effectively cut off from the rest of the world.
My carrier, by default, was Cingular, and no, I did not receive a friendly text message welcoming me to the States.
So the next time I visit the US, I think I’ll leave my phone at home, rather than bringing it as a fashion accessory.
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:41 pm
[…] Grounded In Reality » Blog Archive » Behind the curve Jon Barkan wonders why US mobile is behind Israel’s mobile services. The FCC and intense competition are two good reasons. (tags: mobile) […]
January 25th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
[…] my late colleague Jon Barkan wrote a post on GCI Group’s Grounded in Reality about how great his cell phone coverage was in Israel. I suppose many people wouldn’t be surprised about that, but Egypt on the other hand, is […]
June 1st, 2008 at 8:21 am
Israel is NOT a third world country.
Is a pioneer country within the 20 highest ranked countries in most indexes (education, health, income) And even more… in only 60 years of creation and independence
August 12th, 2008 at 9:35 am
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