In LA

In the last episode of survivor, Denise, a school lunch lady from Massachusetts, won a reward challenge. After 31 days in the wilderness, she got to visit with her husband, have a nice meal, disgust him with her smell, and win a special prize. Host Jeff Probst announced her additional prize, a Sprint phone, with such rhapsodizing about the quality of the Sprint phone network that he likely needed to wash afterwards. Later, Denise could be seen on a boat, eating chocolate cake with her husband and the 2 other contestants she was allowed to bring along. Mid-bite, the phone rang with a call from Denise’s son|daughter. I call B.S.

Why B.S.? Because Sprint phones are completely unusable in China. Until last year, all phones in China used GSM networks. Sprint’s network uses the other major type of cell phone network, CDMA. China Mobile has relatively recently rolled out a CDMA network, but I’d be shocked if it were compatible with Sprint phones, and even if it were, Sprint would need to have an agreement with China Mobile in order for a Sprint phone to be able to roam in China. I suspect that, after showing the Sprint phone with its prominent logo and plugging the network, they swapped the phone for a GSM model with a Chinese SIM card. Maybe the fact that nothing is exactly as it seems. On TV, even on a “reality” show, is no big revelation, but I found the silliness of pushing a phone that is unusable in China, in China, to be amusing.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 2:17 am and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.