25 months ago I called Qwest and told them to shove their phone service
up their ass. I have been cell phone only since then. I refuse to pay
$14 a month in taxes and user fees. Take that Al Gore. Haven't missed
the landline and my total phone service bill has decreased. Also no
telemarketing at all.

Jay Honeck wrote:

What's a Symbian cell phone?

That's techology already in use here in Europe. Regarding cellphones and

mobile

technology we are generally at least one generation in advance to the US.


Yeah, I've heard that. The reasons for this remains mysterious to me,
although the explanation always given here is that it's because European
(and Asian) land-line phone systems were so awful that the new (and better)
cellular technology just exploded as a result.

In other words, since the vastly superior US phone system was engineered (by
law) to the "Five Nines" standard (I.E.: 99.999% reliability), there wasn't
as urgent a need for a viable alternative.

What a double-edged sword THAT has turned out to be, eh? Because we did
such a good job with land-lines, we find ourselves in the dark ages of
cellular technology. (Although I'll bet SOMEWHERE in this story it will
come to light that our Gubmint tried to regulate it, and screwed it up.)