Yeah, 850MHz GSM (which is to say, GSM retrofitted over existing TDMA cel towers which were, themselves, retrofitted over existing AMPS towers) is where AT&T and Cingular are converging in the U.S. GSM-850 is also apparently being widely deployed in Central and South America. Today, you can buy a number of dual-band GSM-850/1900 phones that won't work in Europe, and a handful of GSM-850/1800/1900 tri-band phones that don't have the original GSM-900 band that's most widely available in Europe.

Quad band RF chipsets have been sampling from a number of vendors, with the most likely first product out the gate to be the Handspring Treo 600. (Quoth Handspring's web site: We expect that plans from Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile will be available with Treo 600 within the next few weeks. We also expect to have service from AT&T Wireless available soon.) That's a nice toy, although it's 168 grams heavy and has no Bluetooth.

Probably the most curious of new quad-band phones is the recently announced Samsung SCH-A790, which has two bands of CDMA for the U.S. and two bands of GSM for Europe/Asia.