Tales From the Cellphone Tour

Expert's Travels Turn Up Novel Uses

Most people take a vacation to get away from their jobs. Cyriac Roeding took a vacation for his job.

Instead of relaxing on a beach, Roeding -- a mobile technology expert and enthusiast -- took a 'round-the-world odyssey to see how the rest of the world uses cellphones. He saw parking meters that talk to phones in New Zealand, teenage text-messaging monks in a Himalayan monastery and cellphone charging stations along the Ganges River in India, right next to a raging funeral pyre.

Roeding, 35, quit as executive vice president of CBS Mobile in March after helming the new division of the media giant through its first three years and creating cellphone-based products for the company, home to shows such as the "CSI" franchise.

Roeding, who had founded a mobile business in Germany before coming to CBS, said he quit the network because he tends to work on projects, and once CBS Mobile was up and running, he was ready for a new start-up. CBS confirmed Roeding's account and said he left under good terms.

Before he started a new project, Roeding felt the need to "expose myself to a lot of uncomfortable situations and take myself out of my cozy little life," he said in a recent interview.

He and his girlfriend drew up a list of the places they wanted to visit. Informing Roeding's list, however, was more than just a desire to see exotic scenery: He wanted to see how cellphones were being used in parts of the world he'd never dealt with while working at CBS.

"I need input," Roeding thought at the time.

The result was a jaunt that began July 8 in Los Angeles and wrapped up there Aug. 20. Roeding and his girlfriend went to Fiji, New Zealand, Singapore, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand, South Africa, Brazil and Costa Rica. He declined to give the cost of the trip.

Roeding's takeaway from his circumnavigation (other than an ear infection): "I have known how important mobile is for some time now, but I've got to tell you, I was personally surprised and sometimes shocked at how far the use of mobile goes," he said. "It actually surprised me that mobile is reaching to the very edges of the world."

By late last year, global cellphone penetration had reached 50 percent, research firm Informa said. Worldwide sales of cellphones rose 12 percent in the second quarter of 2008, compared with the same period last year, according to Gartner research. The biggest gain came in the Asia Pacific market, where sales rose 21 percent and Roeding spent much of his trip.

In the countries Roeding visited, texting generally is more widespread than talking because it's cheaper. Cellphones often include AM/FM radios. Because of the high cost of data transmission, mobile Web browsing is only beginning to catch on in poorer countries.

Even though most cellphone keypads are in English, non-English speakers are using the letters of the English alphabet as symbols for words and phrases in their own languages, much the way the Japanese use the Chinese kanji.