None of that is new, all of it has been thoroughly demonstrated, and so - quite realistically - world travelers have a right to expect cell phone service in large parts of the world.

A fourth necessity mentioned by many analysts is the need for reliable fraud prevention tools, and this is a hitch that sometimes blocks users from accessing the cell phone services they feel entitled to. As digital technologies have spread, worries about fraud have diminished but they have not vanished, and the upshot is that sometimes cellular network access will be denied legitimate visitors because the system has detected the possibility of fraud. This is an understandably huge aggravation to travelers but there are no predictions about when fraud will become so inconsequential that there will be no more denials of service. For now, the clear message is: "work with your carrier before you leave to ensure you get the service you expect," says Audrey Schaefer, director of corporate communications for Nextel.

Even when a user does that, however, it doesn't mean world phone service has reached a reliable level of usability. Here's why: "The technology for providing a world phone for voice is adequate," says Cole, "but very inadequate for data. It is proving difficult to have data services roam with world travelers." Stay tuned for more on that because this may be the thorniest and ugliest issue in today's global wireless world.

The Globe in Your Hands
First, feast on the good news, and a bright spot is that handset makers are racing to give road warriors dependable wireless tools. "The market for world phones is definitely growing," says Florian Seiche, vice president and general manager of mobile phones at Siemens. Buyers will be traveling business professionals or "those who want the latest in technology, whether they travel extensively or not," says Seiche, who indicates that these are small but still significant target groups.

Siemens isn't alone. Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson are all steaming forward with world phone development programs. Nobody, frankly, seems to be recording substantial sales, but no handset maker is backing off world phone development, either. Still, one problem that plagues all world phones is that their existence may be unknown to possible buyers. Carrier support for high-end phones has been slender. Most carriers are preoccupied with driving up subscriber numbers, and the usual bait is a free or very low-cost plain-Jane phone. Pricier models are left to languish, frequently with little visibility, in retail shops. One upshot: all handset makers realize that to sell world phones, they themselves will have to carry a heavier marketing burden and so far, with overall sales proving sluggish in the recessionary economy, the big handset makers are hanging back from spending these dollars.

Even so, at Siemens for instance, development of world phones remains aggressive, according to Seiche. The company offers several models (including the spiffy S40, supported by Cingular). Going forward, Seiche and Siemens are convinced this market can only get bigger and the reasoning is scrupulously bottomline oriented. "Carriers need new ways to generate revenues and global roaming will do that," says Seiche.

This is all the more critical because no analyst thinks the carriers' current strategy of recruiting subscribers by dangling very low-cost plans will result in near-term profit improvements. Carriers need to be hunting for products and services to sell to high-end customers, and featured on any list of high-end products is global roaming. That is a big reason why optimism continues to reign in this niche.

GSM Rules
Another issue fueling the spread of global roaming: international cell phone carriers have aggressively penetrated the U.S. market. "Global alliances among carriers will make global roaming easier," says Seiche, who points to Deutsche Telekom's acquisition of VoiceStream in June 2001. "The future is getting brighter for global roaming," says Seiche.

What is the present? Pretty good, if the user carries a GSM phone, says Priscilla Lu, CEO of Santa Clara, California-based interWAVE Communications, a developer of software and hardware for cellular networks. "GSM has a clear lead that will only widen," says Lu, who indicates that GSM bands claim 70% of global digital subscribers (and 65% of all cellular subscribers). "GSM is the closest to being a global standard," agrees Roger Quayle, CTO of IPWireless, a developer of broadband wireless data solutions.

Globally, GSM is especially strong in Western Europe (where it claims about 365-million subscribers, according to GSM Association data); Asia Pacific (203-million subscribers); and Africa (28-million subscribers). Paradoxically, it is weakest in the U.S. (13-million subscribers in the U.S. and Canada), but that number may be vaulting upward as VoiceStream, Cingular, and AT&T all throw dollars at building out domestic GSM networks. Nobody predicts that GSM will soon surpass competing technologies in the U.S., but even for customers who use different networks, there's an easy solution: multiband phones that also feature GSM. "That's how we provide our users with global roaming," says Nextel's Jankowski, who explains that subscribers carry a phone equipped to operate both on the Nextel iDEN network and GSM networks. "For our subscribers that's the easiest solution," says Jankowski.

Service Face-Offs
Brief looks at four competing programs give quick insight into how these services work:

"A call that might cost $6 from a London hotel would cost only $1.29 using our phone," says Schaefer.

"We offer maximum convenience at a good price," says Jankowski, who indicates that the Nextel world phone (a Motorola i2000plus) operates on the 900MHz GSM band.

A hitch for Nextel - one that all carriers face in one way or another - involves SMS messages. "You'll receive your messages when overseas, but you won't be able to reply or initiate new messages," says Jankowski. Note this, however: no carrier can offer better, for reasons revealed below.

The usual must-have is a world phone capable of operating on three GSM bands (1900MHz in the U.S., and 900 and 1800 MHz abroad). Cingular customers can choose between an Ericsson T28 or a Nokia 8890.

With somewhat more optimism than other carriers, Cingular admits that wireless data abroad is a problem but, insists Hogan, "we are working on solving this with our international partners. For our customers, wireless data goes hand-in-hand with voice. We see reliable data roaming as a paramount need and we will offer it abroad." When? Hogan is less explicit about the time frame but, he promises, for Cingular this is a high priority. "We need to tweak our international roaming agreements to cover data and that is a process we are beginning."

What about the others? Virtually all U.S. carriers offer some kind of global roaming - and analysts believe that going forward, offerings will get richer, costs will drop, and eventually callers will truly experience something near a seamless network where one phone will in fact work pretty much universally. By when? "I'd say within three years," says IPWireless's Quayle.

Data Busters
So, why is data proving to be the global sore spot? While the mechanics of voice roaming are well-understood - the industry has over a decade of experience administering voice roaming pacts and there's plentiful technology for validating users and billing for time - there is no history with data roaming. Case in point: How is data charged? By time (as with voice), or by byte? How are systems established to have data follow the user as he or she travels from country to country? How are visitors validated? Nobody knows the answers yet and the upshot is that, in most cases, data doesn't figure into current global roaming plans.

This isn't strictly a U.S. issue, either. Rollouts of GPRS data networks in western Europe, for instance, have been hindered by substantial incompatibilities between networks and - although western European users are much more reliant on wireless data than U.S. users - data roaming there is proving to still be the stuff of fantasy. Systems simply aren't in place and while analysts speculate that markets could be huge - for example, Katrina Bond, an analyst with Analysys, has predicted 6-million GPRS subscribers in Europe by year-end 2002 - those same analysts aren't optimistic that the intercarrier kinks will be ironed out anytime soon. The result: global wireless data roaming simply is on hold, for now.

Is it in fact possible to deliver global wireless data? A vivid proof comes from Inmarstat, a UK-based satellite communications company that offers a genuinely global service. "We cover 98% of the globe," says Stephen Rogers, the company's director of marketing communications. "The 2% we don't cover are the North and South Poles."

Initially founded to serve an ocean-going clientele, Inmarstat - which offers both voice and data services - lately has begun selling into enterprise and it's been put into service everywhere from Afghanistan (where war correspondents use it to connect with home offices in the U.S. and UK) to North Sea oil rigs. Voice pricing is a competitive $2 per minute and data - which can be anything from digitized news footage to faxes to computer documents - is $7 per minute, says Rogers, who points out that while the data price may seem hefty, Inmarstat can actually connect (via its own satellite network) pretty much wherever world travelers go and, importantly, "our transmission rate is 64K, much faster than the 9.6 offered by cell phones, when they can connect," says Rogers. "We launched the world's first global, wireless packet data service and we still are unrivaled."

One hitch with Inmarstat: users need a proprietary, pricey (about $2500, says Rogers), and bulky (about five pounds) unit that does multiple duty as a voice phone, fax, and data terminal. "This is a B2B product," concedes Rogers and, fact is, at that pricing, only well-heeled companies with a keen need to communicate everywhere will likely loom as significant Inmarstat targets.

Mass Market Movers
For most users, Inmarstat plainly is not a viable alternative, but just when the goal of worldwide wireless data seems elusive, Motorola is now entering the scene with its Accompli 009 phone pictured earlier (about $650), a tri-band GSM device that features a speakerphone. But this unit's core function is data. "It was designed as a data device; we added phone functionality later," says Motorola marketing manager Allan Spiro.

"Tremendous buzz" surrounds this product, according to Spiro, who says Motorola found it for sale on eBay months before it hit the market. "People want it because it truly solves a need," says Spiro, and that need, of course, is for affordable data globally.

Does the Accompli 009 deliver? Not exactly, at least not yet, Spiro admits. Users will have access to wireless e-mail, WAP browsing, and other data services, but global SMS, for instance, will remain on the not-yet list. When will all data services be available globally? Sooner than you might think, says Spiro. "We believe the networks will be built out soon. Demand is already there, and devices like the Accompli are getting into users' hands." Global wireless data, he adds, is a solvable problem - and "corporate customers definitely want it," he says.

That's why he and Motorola are optimistic that - in the near-term - a full slate of wireless data services will become available to satisfy the demands of customers who are already lining up.

Is Motorola right? Nobody knows just yet - but keep a close watch on how the Accompli 009 phone fares in the weeks after its debut, around the beginning of 2002. If demand matches Motorola's high expectations, this will be a big sign that, finally, corporate customers are indeed demanding global access to wireless data.

And carriers likely won't be long in meeting that demand. "A large concern for us is meeting the demand of our business customers," says Cingular's Hogan - and you can bet that when enough business customers line up for wireless data services, the carriers will line up briskly to make some of their best customers happy.