“Last year, I took a trip to Asia. To stay in touch, I carried a
GSM world phone, capable of receiving telephone calls in the
countries I was visiting. The capability to receive calls with the
same mobile phone number I use at home while halfway across the
world seemed incredibly cool–at least until the first call came
in! Mobile phones hide the location of the phone, which cuts both
ways. A colleague had decided to call me in the middle of the day
on a Friday, which had awakened me very early on Saturday morning,
because the phone ‘hid’ my faraway location from him.“After returning home, I asked several people why my phone
company could not simply play a message to warn callers when my
time zone changes by more than four or five hours, letting them
know the call might be inconvenient…”