Yes, very likely.

A famous football player there was killed in a car accident.

His father made a plea for people not to use smart phones or Blackberry devices while driving.

I meant Balkanization as a geo-political term meaning fragmenting an area.

That the Balkans is more advanced in mobile phones proves my point: the USA with all its might are not up to smaller countries because there are no common standards, and companies are allowed to monopolize frequencies AND control the handsets as well.

I wrote a comment a few days ago here about the intentional balkanization in the USA and Canada, where a network owns "spectrum" and handsets work only on that network frequencies.

Many decades before him, Averroes, a Muslim polymath born in Cordoba, Spain (d. 1198) was pondering the same questions.

In fact, Aquinas was one of many influenced by Averroes.

Averroes, wrote a treatise: Fasl Al Maqal, translated as "On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy", about faith vs. reason.

You can find the English and Arabic text here.

My mom had cataract surgery a while ago.

She works in clothing/fashion, designing garments for kids and the like.

She noticed after the surgery that violets are different. I asked my optometrist, and she said that the cloudiness in the removed lens is yellowish, and the brain compensates for it, and therefore she is seeing a different color/hue after the surgery.

She did not tell me she had Steve Austin powers so far ...

There is no spectrum shortage. Europe and Asia have no spectrum shortage, despite being more densely populated (generally), and all having the same handsets work on all networks. The decisions to buy a handset and the decision which network to subscribe to are totally separate. You buy the handset outright. No subsidy. No strings attached.

The urge to have balkanized networks is driven purely by networks wanting to fragment the market and put obstacles to their customers leaving for some other network.

I wrote about this re: Canada, and it applies to the USA as well. The only two markets that tie customers this way, and people accept it.

Read Mobile phone carriers lobby for more balkanization by asking for more "spectrum" and More balkanization and monopoly in Canada's mobile phone market.

This should be stopped!

There is no guarantee.

But there is hope for change to the better, where there has been none at all for 42 years.

-- An Egyptian ...

This link says it is $7.50 even ...

But, last time someone I know lost his phone, he bought an unlocked phone but had to pay $35 to get a new SIM.

Maybe that $35 included something extra, like preserving the number he had, or $25 of air time?

Realistically, especially in North America, roaming is not an option. It is just way too expensive.

When I travel on short trips (e.g. to USA, $2.00 per minute), I just eat up the difference and use voice sparingly, and never use data. When it is for more than a week, I remove the Rogers SIM and get a local SIM. Things are way cheaper that way and you never worry about roaming charges, voice or data.

This is what I am recommending the OP does, but others have said that roaming charges can be cheaper if he calls his provider and changes the plan temporarily. That is less than $35 + $7 X ??.

The options are not pretty, Canada having some of the most monopolistic mobile carriers in the G20.

Having said that, you should consider the following:

- CDMA is out, since I don't think it would work with another carrier. CDMA works only with Bell and Telus. So Rogers, Fido and the rest are out.

- Is the area you are in within mobile range of certain carriers? It may not be. So check with locals there. There used to be a map of all Canada with all the cell towers and all carriers somewhere. I forgot the URL though. Google may help.

- Is your iPad locked to a certain carrier or not? If it is locked, you need to unlock it before a SIM from a different provider

- Rogers Pay As You Go gives you 7 day access for $7, and 125MB. You will need a SIM, which is I think, $35, then you need to put some money in the account, say $25 or so.Since 125MB will not be enough, you will need several of these $7. The way it works is that you set the APN in your phone/device to Rogers', and then try to browse. A text message will be sent to you with a URL. You click that, and it will give you a choice of $2 for 1 day and 10MB, or $7 for a week, and 125MB. You click on the link, the money is deducted from your balance, and you are done. Check here for more info: Rogers Pay As You Go.

I have an article on my site for using Android Smartphones with Rogers Pay As You Go. The APN info may help with your iOS setup.

By the way, Rogers is my regular users, and Pay As You Go is my regular plan. I am using Rogers Pay As You Go this week in a not so remote place. That $7 has lasted me from Friday to Monday, but I have not uploaded photos on it. There is WiFi walking distance from here, and I use that for photo uploads.

We Egyptians just had our revolution and ending the state of the emergency was a key demand. It has not been met yet, but we know where Tahrir Square is, and will go there if it is not ended by election time.

Will you Americans do the same for the Patriot Act (and many other civil rights detours since 2001?)

Across the sea, in Alexandria, Egypt, we have that kind of weather regularly in summer. It is very hot, the air is still, and the sea is dead calm.

Never ever did we associate it with an earthquake, neither in as a superstition, nor for real.

That is the what Mubarak (Egypt), Ben Ali (Tunisia), and other despots have been feeding the west for decades. "Hey! You want me to go! Are you ready to deal with wide-eyed fanatic Islamists taking over? I am better for you, so shut up on this reform stuff."

Hogwash!

Look at Turkey. The same drivel was spouted for years, and the army toppled Islamic leaning legitimate governments, such as the Erbakan government in the 1990s. The successor government, Erdogan's, has been in power since 2002 or so, and has been very moderate, well respected and focus on what is important. They did not put forward religious laws, they did not make Turkey a religious state. They did not force women to cover their head, nor did they do anything else that the fear mongers said.

Now, look at what is happened in Tunisia. It was a real grassroots uprising against a dictator, his system, corruption, ...etc. The people on the street were from every affiliation. No single party or group is taking the lead or can claim this victory is their alone.

The situation in Egypt is the same. People from every walk of life are out on the street. Go and look how they are dressed. Some wear designer clothings, have iPhones and Blackberries. Some wear traditional garb (flowing robes). A few have beards, most do not. This again is a no-affiliation grassroots movement. The government is again trying to accuse the Muslim Brotherhood of being behind it, despite the MB announcing that they will not participate ahead of January 25! Now they are rounding the MB leadership off and putting them in prison before the "Friday of Anger" tomorrow. I say: good riddance, because if the revolt succeeds without them, a) they can't take credit, and b) the West and other fear mongers cannot make it like it is a Muslim Brotherhood only victory!

I like this uprising since it has a chance of success, and the people on the street are not carrying or chanting things for this party, or against that group. They are all focused on ousting the regime. They are protesting against rising prices, police brutality, monopoly on power.

It worked in Tunisia, and should work in Egypt.

The USA, and others have to take the side of the people, for once. Joe Biden was on TV and said that Mubarak should not be referred to as a dictator! This will hurt US interests in the long run. Obama supported the people of Tunisia in one of his speeches, and should do the same for Egypt. Or at least ask Biden to shut his hole for some time.

For the USA or the West it is a shame to support someone in power for 29 years, when it is called a republic and he is called a president, all the time when lecturing on "freedom" and "democracy".

Read this View from an Egyptian for more informaiton. I wrote it earlier today.

Here is what I wrote earlier today Views from an Egyptian.

Mod it up if you think it is informative.

I will give you the vote part. We do have voting in Egypt, but the elections are predetermined, with a combination of ballot stuffing, intimidation and exclusion.

Decent life is what we are after. So on that I agree too.

Now regarding women and education, you are wrong. Orders of magnitudes wrong. My mother, who is in her late 70s now got a higher degree back in the 50s. Two of my maternal aunts got masters degrees and then PhDs (one from the USA, the other from Japan). Two of my aunts from my paternal sides got bachelors degrees and worked too. My wife is a computer engineer.

Should I go on?