I am getting quite tired of seeing
this a lot:
Ya see… here’s the thing. In Europe,
people tend to cross borders. A lot. Especially business people.
I know that the iPhone was made in the USA, and although us outsiders
have to practically audition to gain entry to the USA at this stage, once
you are in, your network coverage is relatively carrier static.
In Europe, its different. Very
different. Lets take my example. I live in Northern Ireland
(aka the United Kingdom) and would use O2UK. Once I cross the land
border to Southern Ireland, my phones would need to switch to Vodafone
or O2Ireland, or Metor. Flying to other countries, which I am lucky
enough to do from time to time, means my phone needs to join many different
cellular networks. This IS NOT data roaming. This is just simple
GSM roaming (i.e. to make and take calls). My blackberry just switches
network… as it needs to, and I can set preferred carriers if I want.
I can cross borders over land and the phone switches network, and
I can be on a call for that period. Easy.
When my iPhone loses it network carrier,
it barfs and displays "no service", until I manually switch it
to another network.. and that can easily take time as the unit has to scan
and find them all. If you don’t believe me, drive from Newry to Dundalk
(border crossing between Northern and Southern Ireland) with an iPhone…
You are disconnected for up to 5 minutes.
When I land in another country, taking
my blackberry out of flight mode is simple. It just finds the preferred
network. My iPhone sits there, looking pretty and confused, and even
trying to get it to select a new network takes AGES, and sometimes even
a restart. Imagine this was my full-time business phone.
The iPhone, is not corporate ready.
