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CDMA iPhone 4 Headed to Other Countries?
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Agreement doesn't matter. The advantage to both is that a company put billions of dollars of equipment in cell towers many years ago (maybe whatever prior management chose was better or cheaper for their particular locations, frequency bands or infrastructure at the time), and their customers have billions of dollars of phones that would cost billions of dollars to replace.
I hope it comes to Canada, because only Rogers has GSM, and everyone else has a large CDMA but small HSPA 
Why is there HD-DVD and Blu-Ray? Coke and Pepsi? People back different products.
Companies are the same way or we couldn't have PPC and Intel, NTSC and PAL, firewire and usb, or AC and DC current. Once money is spent on research and building a foundation, companies don't want to switch. Switching costs money.
Here are of few pros of CDMA vs GSM:
GSM
- Better battery life as the transmitter isn't active all the time.
- More used around the word allowing for easier travel.
- SIM cards allow to transfer service to different phones and can store contacts if the phone allows it.
- Allows data and voice at the same time.
CDMA
- Lower power transmitters.
- Signal travels farther giving better range, coverage, and clarity which requires fewer towers and allows calls to be made with much weaker signals than GSM.
- While both technologies have a limit on calls per cell tower, GSM calls fail at that cap because of a hard cap, while CDMA calls just degrade quality and speed due to a soft cap. That's why my AT&T service cuts out at large stadiums and my friend's Verizon service still works.
- Has a practical max data speed of 4 times faster than GSM. (although that may have changed during the various iterations of both technologies)
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CDMA isn't big in Europe, but in other regions of the world you shouldn't have too many problems. All of North American uses it. Much (maybe all, not sure) of Latin America and the Caribbean uses it. Major countries in Asia (Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, China, India, etc.) have CDMA carriers.
Since Verizon invested so much time and resources to help develop this CDMA iPhone, you would think they would get a little bit of exclusivity before Sprint had a chance to sell it. As far as international carriers goes, you think Verizon might get a tiny tiny kick back on sales? I know, very doubtful. Their kick back is just the fact that they are no longer on the outside looking in. No longer having to answer the "When are you guys going to get the iPhone?" question anymore.
They can all exhale.
They can all exhale.
Agreed. While GSM is more popular than CDMA world-wide, Europe is about the only place CMDA is considered rare. You can find it easily enough in most other places.
I think they looked at the sales of the iPhone vs any other phone and dollar signs registered in their head. I know the Android sales are huge as well, but those numbers are made up of many different models compared to the few models of the iPhone. I'd bet they are making a calculated risk that investing in the development of a CDMA iPhone will bring a huge return, even without exclusivity.
Actually Telecom Mobile, New Zealand did exactly that. Saw the light and dropped CDMA EV-DO and went with UMTS (3G).
Also,
GSM == 2G == TDMA
UMTS == 3G == WB-CDMA
CMDA EV-DO == 3G == CDMA
So, what in the US is called "GSM 3G" is actually UMTS everywhere else and is actually Wideband CDMA. So most of the arguments about which is better are fighting over CDMA or CDMA.
Don't confuse the marketing name for the network type with the air interface technology.
I love sim cards. So no cdma for me
On Verizon all you need to do is dial *228, type in the last four of your social security to authenticate, and your phone is active in less than one minute without the need to talk to anybody.
Maybe I shouldn't have said, "no company." I'm assuming they are much smaller than Verizon so it was a little more possible? I have no idea though.
Well, you are technically still in Canada but in southern Canada, we have Rogers, Fido, Telus and Bell to choose from and the CDMA networks run by Telus/Bell are considered legacy. They are really pushing, their new HSPA+ network. Several companies in Asia Pacific have also switched from CDMA to HSPA.I hope it comes to Canada, because only Rogers has GSM, and everyone else has a large CDMA but small HSPA
Just because AT&T has not done such a great job implementing their network in cities like NY and San Francisco, it does not mean that HSPA/UMTS is bad.
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That's nice. How do you feel about throw away phones? How many CDMA phones end up in the landfill?
jodyfanning, UMTS is not WB-CDMA but rather W-CDMA and it is not directly related to CDMA. The air interface is called W-CDMA because it borrows some strategies from CDMA but that is where the similarity ends. CDMA has EVDO for the data layer whereas UMTS has HSPA which is the 3G evolution of Edge (2G). The network layer is built on top of GSM standards. In addition to HSPA, UMTS also encompasses HSUPA which provides a faster upload speed and HSPA+ which has faster up and down speeds for data.
In Japan, both Softbank and Docomo offer HSPA networks which used to be called FOMA in Japan.
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Well hooray for other freakin countries! Meanwhile, I still can't get a good non-pasteurized milk or cheese in the US, or that sweet 50mpg Subaru AWD Turbodiesel Forester they've had out in europe for what, two years already?
Angry Angry!!!
(random unrelated tangent day)
Angry Angry!!!
(random unrelated tangent day)
It is not just some areas it is New York and The Bay Area. Two places where there is a high density of iPhone users.
Also Apple is bound to have done the Maths and decided it needed a CDMA phone to continue growing its market share before 4G becomes prime time.
So the answer is yes!
Eventually, most of them. Which is probably about the same percentage of all mobile phones regardless of technology.
I wish it would come to MTS Mobility in Manitoba - it's the last remaining CDMA carrier that hasn't gone to HSPA. They were supposed to by end of last year, but they keep moving the deadline.
I thought they looked at this (seems I remember a rumor about a universal SIM) that would allow you to activate under any GSM carrier of your choice? But the feedback from the carriers was a backlash of "NO!".
Of course, it makes sense... the carriers don't want to be disposable too. They already are more disposable than they'd like to be I'm guessing?
Back to iPad 2 rumors... CMDA is done now, so not exciting anymore.
Haha, love it!
In reply to some other comments, here in the UK on O2-UK, a GSM network, I am unable to use voice and data at the same time and I didn't even notice this until today when I tried it. I don't think it's such a big issue as people make it out to be in my opinion. Generally when I'm on the phone, if I get a call, I stop what I was doing to give the call my full attention anyway.
iphone 4 is finally iphone4! becoming more global?!
do not expect iphone5 to be very different
f