Single-Chip GSM Phone on Virtual Horizon?

An anonymous reader writes "There's still the alphabet soup and corporate conflicts regarding cell phone standards in the U.S. but... there might be some hope for a single-chip GSM phone, which might open up some interesting possibilities."

Comments

Re:America doesn't need GSM phones.

[DrXym]

GSM would be enormously beneficial to the US. I have a GSM telephone which works practically anywhere in the world, except America. Why? Because the US thinks that the market should fight it out until one proprietary protocol wins over the others. Unfortunately this takes years and mass confusion, consumer uncertainty and overpricing reigns.

In the meantime, the rest of the world saw sense and adopted a single standard. The consequence is you can buy a phone in Thailand and use it in Ireland, you can fly from South Africa to India and still be in touch with head office.

The recalcitrance and obstinacy in the US to develop their own standard except through Gladiator-style death matches has left them isolated and way behind the rest of the world. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if the naysayers think CDMA or some variant was technically better than GSM because it still lost. Hopefully the US will learn better the next time around.