"Make him give me a phone! Make him!"

[edible_hat]

If you don't count Alaska, the USA is roughly the same size as Australia, but with aproximately 10x the population, so the communications industry has to put in more cell-towers to deal with the load, thus lowering the "local" range.

Not exactly... the GSM network in Australia covers "98% of the population" according to the advertising. Which is about 5% of the land mass. The CDMA network covers a much larger area but Telstra want to switch it off because they want to sell lots of 3G handsets (they're not allowed to do so until the 3G network covers the CDMA area). Which sucks for my father, he has a CDMA phone for travelling and can't find a 3G phone without a camera (needs one because cameras are forbidden at his workplace)

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Not exactly... the GSM network in Australia covers "98% of the population" according to the advertising. Which is about 5% of the land mass. The CDMA network covers a much larger area but Telstra want to switch it off because they want to sell lots of 3G handsets (they're not allowed to do so until the 3G network covers the CDMA area). Which sucks for my father, he has a CDMA phone for travelling and can't find a 3G phone without a camera (needs one because cameras are forbidden at his workplace)

Ok, I'm curious now. Why are cameras forbidden?

[Broomjockey]

Ok, I'm curious now. Why are cameras forbidden?

Security risk. Highly sensitive documents, most likely. Standard clause when your job deals with personal information or industry secrets.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Security risk. Highly sensitive documents, most likely. Standard clause when your job deals with personal information or industry secrets.

Ah, of course.

Back to the subject of roaming, I think a lot of confusion stems from the fact they call it "roaming" when you're not necessarily going anywhere. Calling it that makes it sound like you've wandered somewhere.

Instead of using "roaming" and "on network" to identify roaming and non-roaming minutes on a bill why not just "on network" and "off network"??

Sad thing is, I can already envision SCs calling in saying something like: "I wasn't off the network, I had service the whole time!" or "how can I be using minutes when I'm not on the network?"

I can't win.

[edible_hat]

Security risk. Highly sensitive documents, most likely. Standard clause when your job deals with personal information or industry secrets.

Yep, that's it. He's a technical writer for a defence contractor, some of his work is so secret he has to dissassemble his computer and put the parts in different safes at the end of the day.

[Imogene]

then they start blinking wildly,

"We put that light switch in so The Cheat could turn the lights on and off, not hold techno raves. The Cheat is Ga-rounded!"