GSM Cell Phone article LITTERED with factual errors...

[merwin]

I hope this doesn't break any length rules, as it is more of a dissection of an article, rather than a post.
Original Article:
news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=738&e=1&u=/nm/20050313/tc_nm/column_pluggedin_dc

Choices made by governments and companies can mean that teenagers in Athens, Georgia, talk on their fixed line phone for four hours a day while those in Athens, Greece, are sending four text messages on
their mobile phones.
This one is kind of obvious... someone in the USA who talks on a landline phone for 4 hours a day would be more equivalent to someone who sends 400 text messages a day.

Europe touts the broad use of the GSM standard as a measure of success. It is now used in more than 100 countries around the world and has ushered in sophisticated multimedia telephone service in many countries.
Triple that number and you'll be much closer.

Europe's single-standard GSM, which stands for 'global system of mobile communications' reaches a broader audience than America's multiple-standard system.
Actually, it's 'Global System for Mobile Communications'

"You can't use every phone everywhere in the United States, so that puts a limitation on the end user," Munoz observed of the three incompatible American systems.
Three? I can count at least 5 off the top of my head: GSM (T-Mobile/Cingular), AMPS (Old analog), TDMA (A&T/Cingular), CDMA (Sprint/Verizon), and iDEN (Nextel)... none of which are compatible with each other.

Europeans can skip fixed lines altogether. Why bother? A GSM works nearly everywhere -- not just in houses, apartments and offices but at the bottom of a salt mine in Poland or on a wind-swept beach in County Donegal in northwest Ireland. The only real problem occurs on trains.
Oh really? Bottom of salt mines, huh? No country has 100% coverage. The simple fact is that there's less area for most countries to cover. The USA is FAR larger than any of these countries. We have a comparable amount of coverage, just less total percentage.

GSM includes the short messaging system (SMS), which works on every phone in Europe. Some Americans have SMS or BlackBerry Wireless, but not everyone.
ALL digitial cell phone services in the USA include SMS. Most people are just unaware that they have it.

[xultar]

1. SMS - the carriers rape you to death...charging 25 cents a message

or some shit like that. That's why we don't effin use it.

[merwin]

2. For those that don't ad the $5 feature, yeah.

If you add the feature ahead of time you get a big bucket of SMS for a cheap price.

I know for a fact that T-Mobile bends you over and gives you the 'ol one-two if you don't add the feature :-)

[arcos]

3. What's the average cost of an SMS message in the US?

The price in my country is just ridiculous, but some people think it is "too expensive"... each SMS costs $0.0032, meaning you can send 310 messages with $1.

on edit: Nevermind, it was answered on reply #1 :P

[merwin]

6. 310 messages for $1? Holy crapola that's a lot.

[dutchdoctor]

4. factual errors, hmm?

"Europe touts the broad use of the GSM standard as a measure of success. It is now used in more than 100 countries around the world and has ushered in sophisticated multimedia telephone service in many countries.
Triple that number and you'll be much closer."

So there are 300 (GSM-using) countries in the world? I think the US state department recognizes only 192 countries, the UN has 191 members.

[merwin]

5. Oh, that one is my bad... sort of. More than 210 countries/territories

It's still a gross factual error. GSM reached 100 countries in 1997.
"The GSM Association (GSMA) is the global trade association that exists to promote, protect and enhance the interests of GSM mobile operators throughout the world. At the end of 2004, it consisted of 650 second and third generation mobile operators and more than 150 manufacturers and suppliers. The Association's members provide mobile services to approaching 1.25 billion customers across more than 210 countries and territories around the world. The GSMA aims to accelerate the implementation of collectively identified, commercially prioritised operator requirements and to take leadership in representing the global GSM mobile operator community with one voice on a wide variety of issues nationally, regionally and globally."

Source:
http://www.gsmworld.com/about/index.shtml