On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 13:42:15 -0000, Dylan Smith
wrote:

The standardization on GSM helped competition, too. The cellular market
in Britain at least is extremely competitive which helps drives prices
down. Because of this competition, the cell phone can free you from
your local phone monopoly.

Cell phone competition in the U.S. is reasonably healthy, except in
low population-density areas. Even there, as for example in my
father-in-law's area in rural southern Utah, he's got two choices for
providers.

So the situation, while not terribly *standardized* on one kind of
technology, is also not as dire as people make it out to be. I'm on a
plan which permits the use of "daytime minutes" in an area reaching
from the southern border of the United States all the way to the
northern border, and 1000 miles inland or so from the west coast of
the country.

That particular plan is discontinued, but others like it exist which
cover the entire country in all the areas I can think of going. Many
of my neighbors simply don't bother with landline phones anymore.

Rob

--
[You] don't make your kids P.C.-proof by keeping them
ignorant, you do it by helping them learn how to
educate themselves.

-- Orson Scott Card