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If you think wireless carriers in North America charge too much, you are right. An analysis of cellphone plans worldwide found that consumers in the U.S., Canada and U.K. pay the highest for voice and text service on their phones, while those in India, Hong Kong and Japan pay the least.

Receiving phone calls is free in most countries, except U.S. and Canada–that’s why the rate per minute is doubled for these two countries, say Chiehyu Li and Bincy Ninan in a paper published by the think-tank New America Foundation.

The cheapest postpaid voice plan is available in Hong Kong at $8.50 for 600 minutes a month (a penny a minute), while in Canada the cheapest plan is $38.70 for 250 minutes. By comparison, the least expensive postpaid voice plan in America costs $39.99 for 450 minutes.

Even when it comes to texting services, American and Canadian consumers pay more than almost every one else worldwide.

“The United States tends to fall in a band of countries that charge higher prices to individual wireless consumers for everything except pure voice service where prices are comparable,” say Li and Ninan in their report. “It is essential we consider steps that could be taken to encourage competition or impose regulation such that the U.S. becomes an engine of innovation for better and more competitively priced service offerings.”

This is not the first time that an analysis has shown that American users pay more for service on their mobile devices. In July, an analysis by Tableau Software showed American users pay some of the highest prices in terms of dollars per gigabyte (GB) of data on the iPad. (Check out their amazing interactive chart here.)

The New America Foundation’s analysis threw up some surprising results with respect to texting and data services.

Texting is Expensive But Data is Not

Texting is becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. but it comes at a stiff price–though if its any help, U.S. consumers can take heart that their counterparts in the U.K. pay more.

For postpaid text plans, the U.K. provides the most expensive plan at $7.70 for 75 texts a month (10 cents a text). The U.S. is a close second at $5 for 200 texts a month.

The cheapest text rate offered is in Sweden at $17.80 for 5500 texts. India and South Korea charge only a penny for every text sent.

Not surprisingly, when it comes to unlimited data plans on mobile phones, the U.S. does much better –landing in the middle tier of service rates. American users can get $30 a month plan, which is cheaper than Canada’s $72.90 a month for unlimited data.

But Sweden’s unlimited data plans are among the best, coming in around for $13.80 a month, followed by India at $19 a month.

If you want a detailed breakdown of how countries compare for voice, text and data, check out the analysis on New America Foundation’s web site.

Charts: New America Foundation

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Source:wired.com

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Cellphone battery dead? No problem: Just borrow a charger from a friend. Oh, wait — you can’t, because your friend doesn’t have the same phone as you, and his charger won’t work with your phone.

That annoyance will end next year, for Europeans at least. Thanks to the efforts of the European Commission, most cellphones sold in Europe will have a one-size-fits-all charger starting in 2011. So far, 10 major cellphone makers, including Apple, Motorola, Samsung and Research In Motion, have signed on to the agreement.

American users will have to wait. Without a government agency setting a deadline, it is up to handset makers to make the switch to a single standard. All consumers can do is let their old chargers gather dust in a drawer somewhere, while hoping manufacturers will eventually converge on a standardized charger.

“For the FCC, this is probably number 5,000 on their list and it is legislative priority number 10,000 at this point,” says Joe Banos, chief operating officer for Wilson Electronics, which makes cellphone boosters and antennas. “We believe the U.S. will ultimately follow Europe here, but the question is when.”

Today each cellphone ships with its own charger. Different companies use different connectors — and often different models from the same company do too, making it difficult for users to borrow a charger. And when it’s time to toss the phone, the charger goes into the bin too.

A universal charger means consumers don’t have to get a new charger with every mobile phone. As a bonus, it will be easier to borrow a charger when in need.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

San Francisco passed a new law last month that requires all retailers to display the amount of radiation a cellphone emits. Predictably, that law is now coming under fire from CTIA, the wireless industry group. CTIA has filed a lawsuit to block enforcement of the ordinance.

“The ordinance misleads consumers by creating the false impression that the FCCs standards are insufficient and some phones are safer than others based on their radiofrequency emissions,” says CTIA, which seems geared up for this battle.

The effect of radiation from cellphones on users has become a highly contentious issue. As consumers become increasingly glued to their phones, researchers, environmental organizations and cellphone industry groups are debating the question of what exactly is the impact of the radiation emitted from the phones. So far, there has been no conclusive answer.

In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sets the acceptable radiation standards for cellphones. As part of the device certification process, all handset makers have to use an independent lab to test radiation emissions from the phone. The certificates and radiation levels are displayed on the FCC’s site along with the product details but they are not easily accessible to consumers.

Earlier this year, a non-profit organization called the Environmental Working Group created a database where customers can look up the Specific Absorption Rate–the rate at which energy is absorbed by a mass of tissue, a measure of radiation emitted–for their phones. San Francisco’s ordinance steps it up by requiring retailers to display this information in stores.

That could mislead consumers, says CTIA.

“The problem with the San Francisco ordinance is not the disclosure of wireless phone SAR values–that information is already publicly available,” says CTIA Vice President of Public Affairs John Walls in a statement. “CTIAs objection is that displaying a phones SAR value at the point-of-sale suggests to the consumer that there is a meaningful safety distinction between FCC-compliant devices with different SAR levels.”

“The ordinance is not only scientifically unsupported, it violates the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the United States Constitution and must be stricken,” says CTIA.

San Francisco city officials are fighting back.

“I am disappointed that the association representing the wireless communication industry has decided to challenge our landmark consumer information law in court,” Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco says in his statement. “This law is not an attack on the wireless industry or their products.”

Photo: Inside a cellphone radiation testing lab (Priya Ganapati/ Wired.com)

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews