GSM?  What's THAT mean?

GSM = Global System for Mobile Communications.

In my humble opinion (echoed by hundreds of wireless carriers in over 159 countries, that is) the best digital wireless cellular standard there is, and the one EVERYONE will be using in a few years.

I'm not going into a technical or historical discussion of cellular wireless, but simply:

Back in the early 90's, while we Americans were still screwing around with Analog Cellular (AMPS) systems, the Europeans got together to figure out a new wireless protocol for the future, that would be standardized, allow for easy roaming between companies in different countries, provide advanced digital features, etc.  The result was the GSM digital wireless standard.

We didn't catch on here in the USA until the mid-to-late 90's, by that time unfortunately (from the perspective of GSM proponents!) Qualcomm foisted their CDMA digital standard on America, and a rivalry was born.  Other competing digital wireless standards are iDEN and TDMA.

Here in the USA, GSM is still the underdog.  VoiceStream is the largest US GSM carrier with about 3 million customers last I heard...admittedly, small compared to the ranks of CDMA (SprintPCS & others), TDMA (Verizon & others) and iDEN (NexTel & others)

BUT...that's not going to last, as the rest of the known universe is using the GSM digital standard, over 300 million people in 150+ countries use GSM wireless handsets every day for a few million phone calls.   I think we'll win.  :)

For more information, a great site is:  www.gsmworld.com