[Stu]

As much as I complain about my state run phone company and its monopoly (Etisilat), at least they are progressive when it comes to technology and have cheap internal calls. It is the international calls where they rob you blind (60 US cents a minute to call North America and Europe) and about US 25 cents a minute to call the mobiles with the cheapest international tariffs.

I've been carrying a Riiing phone in one pocket and an Etisilat in the other. Unfortunately, I often carry a Blackberry as well which makes 3 phones phones, yuck.

Turning to the US, GSM phones come from the providers SIM locked. Cingular (Orange) and T-MObile will eventually unlock your phones for you, but you need to be a good customer, half a reason, and the model has to be more than 90 days old.

The former ATT (now Cingular Blue) and the MVNO's will not unlock your phone, but of course you can get them unlocked back alley like you do in Europe. Phone repair shops are not particularly common in the US. I get mine fixed in Hong Kong or Dubai. (I'm getting my Nokia N70 reflashed with English firmware in the UK -- it is HK Chinese now with English, but no ITAP, etc).

I suspect the comment about permenant SIMs, however, is talking about the CDMA providers in the US. CDMA (2g) is a competing technology to GSM and does not use a SIM card in most implementations of the standard. In HOng KOng and Mainland China there is an impelmentation with a SIM, but not in most other places.

Stu