A few years back the 2G cellular standards drivers got together to form
their 3G standards.
There were a few groups iirc - including GSM, CDMA, & NTT's standard.

Instead of deciding on 1 specific standard, they worked out how to make
them work together as much as possible, and incorporate all the
standards in one handset. The handset essentially had 4 related modes
and also made SIM cards as standard. ALSO, the handset would 'fall
back' to one of the original standards.

This would mean that a european handset supporting the 3G standard
would roam to any other 3G group, but could only fall back to GSM in
countries that didn't have 3G.

That's my understanding of their intentions anyway.
I know in the US some of the providers, in buying each other out, were
left with GSM and CDMA hybrid networks. In Australia, Telstra has both
a GSM and CDMA network.

As far as I can see, there are now 2 distinct networks. Today it's 3GSM
and CDMA's EV-DO. Are there any handsets that work on both? Would there
be any point anymore?

Thanks for any info :)
Greg