It’s really sad that people int he US are so limited in their knowledge. at&t and T-Mobile at the beginning were marketing their technologies (gprs and sms) under their own brand names. T-Mobile was branding sms as ping-pong messagig while at&t used some other name. People were pushed into the stupidity and no-knowledge corner and sort of stayed that way. at&t still uses Smart chip description for sim card. Another thing here is that the general population does not understand the idea of “unlocked device”. It also doesn’t help that the customer service people are just as uneducated as the customers. A few years ago a friend of mine was going to travel to Poland to visit his boyfriend. He uses Sprint network (CDMA) so he went to sprint store and asked if he can use his phone to call IN POLAND. The rep (chap ) at the store said “Of course but you need to buy an international plan for $10″. So my friend instead of consulting with the geek (ME) said he will b able to use it in Poland. I kept pounding into his head that it WILL NOT work there due to the network type. He did not let this idea get into his head because Mr. Sprint told him it would…. Of course a month later he told me his phone did not work there. This is also the kind of person that thought he could make international phone calls from his phone for the said $10 extra… Guess what….one month later his bill came in…$1800. I have to admit my friend is a one of a kind (compared to me) but this “One of a kind” is the same way most americans think. I have an aversion to Motorola phones so I jokingly say “Friends don’t let friends get RAZR phones”. When my boss’ husband wanted a new phone, I told him to STAY AWAY from Razr. He did not listen because the phone was SO COOL. I told him this is a 5 year old phone but he still got it…only to bitch three months later that the phone is a piece of crap. Networks make a giant mistake here by using some crappy branded descriptions for the services and on top of that hire a bunch of people who think they are Steve Jobs (translation – God’s gift to the world) because they work at a mobile shop yet are just a basic cookie cutter sales people who lack their own knowledge and only follow the written agenta such as…Go to paragraph 1. If Q=1, to to paragraph C, If Q=2, skip to the end kind of approach. I’m glad I’m a part of T-Mobile because their reps seem to have more knowledge in general about the worldwide networks (GSM frequencies, CDMA, UMTS etc etc). You can only depend on yourself and your friends which is a sad state of living but until some provider breaks the rules, we’ll be stuck in this Alcatraz