But the good thing is that the Asian CDMA frequencies are the same as
the U.S. ones, unlike GSM.

There is some 450MHz, some 2100 MHz, and some WLL 800 MHz, but it's
mostly 800 MHz Cellular, and 1900 MHz PCS. The list is at
"http://www.cdg.org/worldwide/index.asp"

There's only a little bit of 800 MHz Cellular in Europe, but that's only
because the governments wouldn't permit it, not because the carriers
didn't want it.

While on the topic I find it truly amazing that all the AT&T ads I
seem to see now never mention their domestic network and instead are
about how many other countries their phones work in where the competitor's
phones don't (one of those ads was a lie, too, the one where, judging from
the language, the guy is either in Hong Kong or Guangdong and is about to
call his business contact "stinky fish face"; US CDMA phones work fine
there) when they price that service at such get-rich-quick rates that
you don't really ever want to use it.

However, it used to be that CDMA roaming was something of a bargain,
relatively speaking.  When Verizon priced most roaming at $1.29/minute there
was some value there (and when it was $0.69/minute + outbound call charges it
was quite cheap), but now that they've recently cranked the standard price
up to $2.00 per minute they've pretty much matched AT&T's outrageous rates.
And that's not even mentioning the practical annoyances of roaming with a
CDMA phone, like finding that your phone book entries don't work,
having to do detective work to figure out how to dial a call, and not
being able to forward the phone when you are overseas, drawbacks which
I used to think were a reason why Verizon would always need to price
International roaming below the GSM operators.  I was wrong.

This is true even in east Asia.  Japan has CDMA2000 operators, but US
CDMA2000 phones don't work there.

"If there's a GSM system"?  I travel with a quad-band GSM/UMTS2100 phone
now and there is no country I've been to, or even know of, which doesn't
have an operator the phone can use.

Even for short trips I find the global roaming SIM I have (from Celtrek)
to usually be worth while.  The rates are often better (and sometimes
much, much better) than the US carriers, and they seem to let you go a
long time without using or topping up the SIM without cancelling it.  It
also fixes the problems I had in countries where it is either not possible
or annoyingly expensive for non-residents to get local phone service (Costa
Rica and Japan are the problems like this for me).

Since I'm sometimes paranoid about being left without phone service,
however, I also don't travel without a postpaid SIM from somewhere
to fall back on in an emergency.  They don't run out of credit, they
don't rely on screwy call-back dialing, and you can use one to make a
call just about everywhere it is possible to make a call.

But, while I do subscribe to the theory that there's no such thing
as carrying too many phones (or SIMs) while travelling, it has been
a while since I could find a reason to carry a CDMA phone anywhere
outside of the US/Canada/Mexico area my plan covers.  CDMA roaming
no longer has a price advantage, and I know of no place where a
CDMA phone would work but my GSM/UMTS travel phone wouldn't.

Dennis Ferguson