What is a WORLD Phone?

You Can Use a Cellphone in Most of the World Without a Giant Dish

In the United States several major cell phone carriers, such as Cingular and T-Mobile, have chosen to use the GSM digital protocol that is popular overseas. Their wireless handsets, as well as other brands sold in the U.S., operate on either 850 mhz or 1900 mhz, while European networks operate on either 900 mhz or 1800 mhz. These frequencies, or bands, are incompatible so in order for a handset to work both in the U.S. and abroad it must be capable of transmitting signal on three or four different frequencies. Therefore a wireless handset capable of operating on three of these bands is called a tri-band, while a handset capable of operating any of the four is called a quad-band.

These multi-band phones are termed "World Phones", though a serious traveller would really only consider a quad-band, as tri-band phones were more of an interim step. While several major manufacturers such as Samsung and Nokia have produced competent world phones, Motorola was the first company to popularize quad-band phones and continues to produce more of them than any other carrier. The Motorola RAZR is an excellent example of the company's recent quad-band efforts.

As GSM is easily the most pervasive wireless protocol worldwide with over one billion current subscribers, a traveller with a quad-band world phone phone should be able to obtain useable wireless signal in most urban areas accross the globe.


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