Coverage is spotty and service functionality for users outside their home regions depends on the compatibility of allied networks. For example, although SBC owns both PacBell and Ameritech, subscribers based in California with PacBell s GSM service cannot use their phones in Chicago to roam onto Ameritech s service due to incompatible networks. Furthermore, advanced features such as digital voice mail often do not work outside the network operator s territory. Although alliances exist among GSM carriers, a PacBell customer traveling to New York and roaming on to Omnipoint s network cannot access voice mail while outside the PacBell territory. In Europe, roaming is well coordinated.
Customers have coverage across the continent and can use advanced features everywhere.
Asia s infrastructure is comparable to Europe s, and with GSM there is clear synergy between European and Asian wireless markets, setting the United States even further back. In Japan, the Handi-Phone is sold like a cheap watch and is as popular among kids and their parents as pagers are in the United States. Wireless devices have greater appeal in Europe, too, where they are mass-marketed in commodity outlets such as grocery stores. People use handsets to pay for a car wash, and wireless smart cards are being used as bus passes that display ETA for the next bus due at a given stop. Wireless dating services are popular in Scandinavia, and the list goes on.