Cell Phone: India & US

I was in India for the last 2 months and was surprised to see the "Quality" of the cell phone coverage...It is totally unbelievable...It just works everywhere even when in the trains,roads,small towns...not just works, the roaming also fantastic.

On top of it, it is "cheap", real cheap. No cost for the incoming calls, SMS is pretty cheap and popular.

I never seen any such service in India like this before...Good job.

Then i am back to bayarea, turned ON the phone, i just see 1 OR no lines inside in many places like office and it's very frustrating...I use Cingular. It's expensive and not sure how SMS costs here.

This is one area where US carriers are definitely behind the Indian carriers.

I use the Motorola V551 phone and it was very useful in India.(unlock it here in the US itself).

Uday.