dev/toaster was simply making the point that the fact that 80% of the world uses GSM:
A) doesn't make it a better technology:
Which isn't necessarily relevent, but FWIW, it is.
B) is of no value to dev/toaster because he lives in the US, so what the rest of the world does is of no value to him in the US.
Again, this is not necessarily relevent. I live in Stuart, FL, and there are many aspects of the iPhone that may not be important to me because they're more useful outside of it, but that doesn't mean the over-all correct technology choice isn't to include those aspects.
C) Not to mention the fact that:
Motorola devloped the first cell phone
Qualcomm developed CDMA
Bell Labs developed TDMA, the pre-cursor for GSM
Apple developed the iPhone
Let's face it. All of the above are American companies and we would not be having this conversation without American creativity. So I would suggest that you not make anymore sweeping generalizations. The US loves the rest of the world. Don't be too quick to assume the worst about Americans.
Ah. The quick appeal to nonsense patriotism. The statements are slightly dubious BTW:
1. Motorola developed the first handheld cellphone. I'm not going to suggest that's a bad achievement, it's an excellent one, but it's not the same as "the first cellphone". Cellular telephony predates handheld units, and given NMT was the first rolled out cellular phone standard, I would assume the first cellular phone wasn't actually a Motorola.
2. TDMA means various things. I doubt you'll find a single inventor of Time Division Multiplexing. As far as D-AMPS goes, that is the US mobile phone system that replaces the analog air interface of original AMPS with a digital, TDMA, one, that's often called TDMA, was first deployed in 1990, as opposed to the first GSM deployment in 1988. The two standards are also completely unrelated. It's like saying that the Internet is TV's precursor.
By the way, CDMA is a NEWER and more advanced technology than GSM.
That sentence makes no sense on any level.
If you mean "CDMA" the air interface technology type is more advanced than GSM, then you're mixing apples and oranges. GSM is not an air interface technology.
If you mean "CDMA", the network standard also known as cdmaOne and CDMA2000, is newer and more advanced, then, no it isn't. cdmaOne and CDMA2000 are both successors of the original AMPS standard from the 1970s.
A CDMA air interface has replaced the analog air interface of AMPS, and this has been coupled with some major, optional, improvements to the back-end, but it's essentially something with its heritage in AMPS.
When people make this claim, they tend to focus on two components of the two standards rather than the over-all systems, largely comparing GSM's FH-TDMA air interface system to cdmaOne's CDMA based system, or making comparisons on the basis of the data rates for Internet services. Focussing on one small element of the technology doesn't actually provide a reasonable comparison.
That's the ONLY reason GSM is used more, because it's older, was deployed earlier, and is therefore cheaper for developing countries to deploy today. But for network capacity, call fidelity, call security, etc., CDMA is better.
Network capacity is an operator issue. The call security issue is a red herring, and "call fidelity" is an issue that really relates to whether the operator is being cheap, regardless of network technology. Certainly in this area, Verizon and Sprint PCS have awful call quality.
cmdaOne/CDMA2000 is deployed throughout the US largely because it's cheap. As an AMPS enhancement, it can be deployed overlaying a cellular operator's existing infrastructure, and existing towers used for analog systems can be used allowing immediate capacity improvements. It's not deployed because it's "superior" in any sense other than for operators trying to keep down costs.
Let's also remember why at&t (formerly known as Cingular) is for now, the largest US carrier - because they bought customers from then AT&T Wireless, not because they won them in the marketplace with a more compelling product.
Both Cingular and AT&T won those customers in the marketplace. What's your point?
While no wireless network is perfect, simply due to the fact that it's "wireless", Verizon clearly has the best network in the US.
That's a pretty low bar to set, but even if you use it, that's a questionable assertion.
Meanwhile, Verizon customers are the most loyal. Verizon has the lowest customer turnover (churn) in the industry at 1.2% vs. 1.8% for Cingular in Q4 2006.
Verizon is the operator that requires three year contract terms. Of course their customers are the most "loyal"!
Quarter over quarter, Verizon keeps adding more customers than Cingular - at the present pace, Verizon will once again pass Cingular as the largest US carrier within 2 years. (and Sprint actually lost net retail customers in the 4th quarter of '06.)
I'm trying to work out the point you're making. If Verizon's alleged superiority comes from their use of AMPS and CDMA2000, then the fact they're gaining most of their new customers from an operator deploying the same technology as they do doesn't really prove it. Cingular is growing to, as is T-Mobile.
Perhaps the problem is Sprint?
Then there's the technology itself. The rest of the world will eventually convert to one of several possible versions of Wide-Band CDMA. It will just be a gradual evolution. But it will be an easier migration for current US CDMA providers (and their customers) to make the transition, since they are already using CDMA.
Actually, not really. You're throwing terms out there trying to make something look like it's making sense, but actually they're the wrong terms and it's not.
Most countries have network operators who are deploying the latest, 3G, version of GSM, called UMTS, including the US. The two in the US deploying it are Cingular, and this year T-Mobile. UMTS uses, as you correctly mention, W-CDMA. There are no plans to replace 2G GSM networks with 3G ones in most areas, instead governments are freeing up spectrum that will be used for the 3G networks, while the 2G ones run in parallel.
W-CDMA has faced deployment issues because of it's 5MHz spectrum slice requirement, which is why it's not been deployed in the US except in select markets. In many cases, deploying a UMTS network that uses W-CDMA means turning off existing GSM networks, because of a shortage of spectrum. When operators in other countries finally turn off their GSM networks, which is probably a decade or more away, they'll not be using W-CDMA. The next generation of UMTS systems are based upon a technology called OFDMA, which is also used by WiMAX (and UMB, the "After CDMA2000" evolution of what was originally AMPS.) This is being standardized right now, with the standards being set by September of 2007. Unlike W-CDMA, there's no need for 5MHz spectrum slices, so the network can be co-deployed very easily with existing standards.
So 2G GSM networks will most likely be upgraded, when they go to UMTS, to OFDMA, not W-CDMA.
But T-Mobile and Cingular are rolling out W-CDMA based UMTS at the moment in spare and available spectrum. Does the US experience of CDMA have any advantages to them? Answer: No. The two standards, CDMA2000 and W-CDMA, are entirely different. Only someone who sees the four letters "CDMA" would ever think there's anything remotely similar about them.
At the end of the day, the following points are unquestionably true:
1. The US CDMA2000 standard is a woefully outdated cellular system whose "advantages" are control over users equipment, less requirement for new towers, and (right now) better data rates (that are insignificant unless you're planning to hook a laptop up to a network.) Two of these advantages are only advantages for an operator, and one is a positive disadvantage to a mobile device maker.
2. GSM is deployed across the world. Its advantages are that it's open, that users are in control, that it has reasonable data rates, and that it's reliable and high quality.
3. There is real competition between GSM and AMPS based standards when it comes to numeric point calling. GSM/UMTS has faced problems in the US because of its adoption of W-CDMA (ironic, considering it felt obliged to adopt a CDMA-based system because of the level of hysterical propaganda coming certain quarters of the industry), but this is a temporary hurdle. So a device maker in 2007 trying to plan a long term strategy should be looking at the general back-end and infrastructure issues, not who has 300kbps rates throughout the US, vs who has 600.
There is no doubt in my mind that GSM/EDGE the correct standard to go with.
Building a CDMA2000 based system would have put the iPhone at the mercy of the operators. It would have made it limited to only the US and some parts of Asia. I can't even fathom why anyone, even the most rabit Qualcomm shill, would think Apple would be better off making their phone CDMA2000 based.
Verizon and Sprint can fix this issue relatively easily. Adopt open standards. Even if they want to continue with AMPS, simply adopting R-UIM would make a significant difference in terms of the attractiveness of CDMA2000 networks for equipment makers. I'm hoping the UMB effort will do the same thing as GSM's LTE effort, and adopt an all-IP network as the backend, which will also significantly blur the distinctions and open up the network. In the mean time, they also have enough spectrum to consider running GSM/EDGE networks alongside their IS-95/IS-2000 ones. If they want to offer the iPhone, they can.
Ultimately, it's Verizon, Sprint, and the other US CDMA2000 operators that have made their networks unattractive for equipment makers. And it is they you need to lobby to do the changes that would make their networks better.
But, hey, keep on pretending it's all about the air interface. Whoop! I can get lots more data on my EV-DO card as my EDGE card, it must be "better"! ;-)
