Samsung 80 puts two phones in one
THERE IS a growing niche market, especially in developing countries, for a GSM handset which accepts two GSM SIM cards simultaneously.
This has been christened 'dual standby' rather than 'dual SIM' – which has come to mean a handset that takes one GSM card and one CDMA one card.
In Europe and North America, consumers have become accustomed to obtaining relatively decent coverage with a GSM phone.
In developing countries, however, coverage is far more patchy so consumers have taken to carrying phones from two or more different networks in the hope of getting at least one signal.
A solution to this problem – a dual SIM holder, has been around for ages. The snag is that you normally have to power the handset off and back on again to switch networks.
One supplier,GR8 Ideas, offers an intelligent holder that gives users the chance to swap between networks in software.
The catch is that the adapter requires a bit of space under the cover and so doesn't suit most smartphones. More details here.
However, Samsung has gone one better with its newly released SGH D780 handset.
This handset can seamlessly swap from one SIM card to another and take whichever
call is incoming.
The company claims the D780 is the successor to the world's first dual standby handset, its D880 model.
, followed by Southeast Asia.
It appears that this handset should eventually tip up in Europe but the INQ believes that certain network operators will take a very dim view of it.
Unfortunately for 3 UK, which complains that many of its customers own two phones because they can't port their existing telephone number easily, the D780 isn't 3G compatible.
However, it would work in the USA, for example, to swap between T-Mobile and AT&T.
Dual standby phones could, of course, wreak havoc with some operators' tariffs because the user could switch calls from one network to another depending on the time of day. µ
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Two years back I did some marketing for a company called Amatus. ( www.amatus.biz) . We could have up to 6 different sims from different phone companies or regions of the world in a special carrier. The phone I personally had, ( a superb Sony-Ericsson 630) had 2 sim cards in it. One from Vodaphone in Spain, one from Amatus for travelling to Germany. I could have had up to 4. Though in my phone only 2 were active at a time. We needed the carier for up to 6. THAT was in the fall of 2006. Switching was automatic. Ironic, progress, no?
It has nothing to do about Signal or coverage. It is all about cost: usually each network offer very cheap calls to the same network, but makes it very expensive to call the other network… so many people are carrying two and sometimes 3 phones to make it easier for people from different network to call them.

But since you are not fro, a developing country, you make a strange assumption that it is due to bad coverage!!! Which is not true at all.
I think there was a "dual stand-by" Benefon. Perhaps 10 years back. You could receive calls on standby on any of the two SIMs at the same time, no switching. But you had to elect which one you want to place calls through and switch to place a call through the other one.

And speaking of switching in software, I still have an adapter for Nokia 3310, which allowed you to swich by pressing *3340# or something like that.
Ebay is full of dual sim gsm or dual standby chinese phones which sell for decent prices and come with spare batteries, touch screens, memory slots and usb chargers. It will great if these phones are produced by reputed electronics company like samsung meaning better quality and customer service. There is a big market for these phones in europe thanks to expensive calls, and long contacts .Hope other operators like nokia and sony join as well with 3g offering , breaking the restrictive tariffs of companies like vodaphone and tmobile who try to lock phones and user experience of their customers by branding phones and removing all options and settings.