Poll: GSM vs. CDMA?

I have heard many arguments that CDMA is supposedly better in quality than GSM, but I think that CDMA is destined for the same path that NTSC went i.e. a tiny share of the world market. AFAIK GSM is by far the most used globally. The place I have my account with here in Switzerland, has agreements with a huge number of countries (67 I think) where I can use my cell phone in roaming without any problems.

It works pretty well. I've used my phone in about four European countries, South Africa and Australia.

I found it comical that the functioning GSM network in Iraq is going to be replaced by a CDMA one. It's not going to make cell phone customers happy in the long run, I think.

It can be argued that NTSC is by far in much better shape than CDMA. NTSC is used in the US exclusively, whereas CDMA has only a portion of the US market. Also NTSC material finds its way around the world, so much so that some Europeans and Asians have dual PAL/NTSC sets, whereas almost nobody in the US and Canada have dual format sets.

As for Iraq, AFAIK, it's going to be GSM. Some US guys are obviously pushing CDMA, but the contracts that have gone out have gone to GSM providers (including American ones).

I've put a lot of time into researching my next cellphone, and I've decided it's going to have to be CDMA for me. The main reason is where I live, GSM coverage is decent, IFF you stick around major meto areas and the interstates. Get into the farmlands and the less densely populated/traveled areas and you've got a paperweight. A CDMA phone with AMPS backup is going to get the widest coverage, and to me, getting a phonecall in/out is far more important than bluetooth, polyphonic ringtones or color games.

A few times a year I travel through sparsely populated upper Michigan, and I don't expect to see GSM coverage in the parts I drive for a long time. If I hit a deer up there, I want the greatest probability my phone will work, and thats a tri mode CDMA phone.

The fact that GSM works across the globe is just fine and swell for the rest of the world, but it doesn't influence my decision one bit.

I have an old backup GSM/AMPS phone for the countryside. I'll just leave it in the car. Fortunately, my sim card can be switched at will between my GSM/AMPS phone and my GSM world phone.

But yeah, for you, it does sound like a CDMA/AMPS phone will serve you best for those times you head up to Michigan.

Is there even an alternative to GSM in Europe at all? (I mean apart from UMTS, ha ha. )

Nope. And that's a Good Thing™

I have the CDMA version (Sprint) of the Treo 600 because GSM coverage in the US is a joke.

As an example, this is Cingular's GSM coverage map. Only the dark orange is covered.

I don't know which is better, but I use CDMA. I've been with Verizon wireless for ten+ years, and probably won't change soon. The only advantage for me in switching to GSM is there seems to be a better selection of phones, but from what i have read in cell phone sites, there are a host of better featured cdma phones coming to the market soon, including things like bluetooth. And you really can't beat the coverage. Here's verizon's service map compared to the cingular gsm coverage posted above

I switched from Verizon after 8 years to AT&T because of the fact that Verizon can't get its sh*t together and get these phone manufacturers to make BETTER PHONES. I'm so sick of watching cell phone technology skyrocket while the best Verizon offers is polyphonic ring tones that they FORCE you to pay for (you have to hack your phone to put ANYTHING on it).

Screw Verizon.

Hello, Nokia 3650.

And my 3650 is unlocked so when I go overseas I don't have issues with my phone #.

Mike

ALthough I agree with your frustrations with verizon, the single biggest feature that I need with a phone is that it works when I need it to. Bluetooth and Hey Ya! as a ring tone don't do me much good if I can't get a signal to make a call. It all comes down to what you need out of your service I guess.

I guess it depends on where you live too. I live in a metro area of Canada and visit metro areas in the US, all of which support GSM.

Out in the boonies around here, neither CDMA nor GSM work, so I use analogue. But it seems from the maps that CDMA has a higher chance of working in the boonies than GSM in the US, esp. in the midwest.

As for Verizon and phone models, it would seem that Verizon really doesn't have that much clout. Too bad though, since competition is good. BTW, does Sony Ericsson even make CDMA phones anymore?

Anyways, I HATE polyphonic ring tones. What I do want however, is a small phone with a usable calendar, Bluetooth,good data support, and Mac support of course.

GSM is the way to go if you do any international traveling. Even if you don't use your same carrier, you can switch out the SIM (or is it CIM?) card and keep your phone numbers and phone. I'm normally in Houston but have been in Calgary for 3 months. I took out my T-mobile card from my S/E T610 and am using Rogers AT&T while in Canada.

iSync makes it even better. I have a "Houston Phone" group in Address Book and a "Canada Phone" group. When I went back to Houston for Christmas, I had iSync change to my Houston group of people for syncing to my phone. This way I only keep on my phone the group of people that are likely to call me when I travel or when at home.


BTW, here's a link to T-Mobile's coverage area in the U.S. I haven't had problems with them when traveling in the US, whether it was to a major city or to my family's farm.

Your case is special since you've stayed for 3 months, but CDMA would work fine for somebody just visiting... going from Houston to Calgary and vice versa, since both cities have great CDMA coverage. Your T-mobile would roam just fine in Calgary as you know.

OTOH, CDMA is not as useful in Asia, and is useless in Europe.

Sony Ericsson just released a CDMA phone, and it looks pretty sweet, but I believe only Sprint is carrying it. You would think that with Verizon being the single biggest carrier in the US they would have the clout to get better phones. I think it's more of a bad business decision on their part than a lack of ability.

So far I've been pretty pleased with Cingular. There are very few places I don't have service. I might get a "Gait" phone to cover those areas that I don't get GSM

Ah yes. If you're talking about the T608, that came out 9 months ago, and you're right, they're still making it. I don't see it on Sprint's site though. Has it been removed - discontinued by Sprint? Anyways, after the T608, SE won't be making ANY more CDMA phones for the NA market.

I'm not a big fan of the T608 though. It seems analogous to the GSM SE T68i, which is an old GSM model now.

I believe that they only have limited numbers of T608

I also switched from Verizon. They just seem to be the most unorganized, and it really seems like they couldn't give two damns about their customers, i've had so many issues with then that have required not three calls to finally fix, but around 4 or 5!

I use my T610 on T-Mobile, great, can't bitch about it really. Got service far into NH this past weekend, which was a shocker, although I lost it once we reached our destination, i was shocked at how long it lasted going up there....i really need to get it unlocked though to use Cingular's towers when it needs to though, bc that also woulda helped some!
GSM all der way!

Technically, CDMA beats TDMA (of which one variety is GSM). It supports more users per channel, secure connections, and faster data speeds. Of course, I don't worry about that, just buy whatever you can get the best deal on.

By the way, I believe I've read that the next generation GSM will be based on CDMA.

Chris

As mentioned above, having just GSM here is indeed a blessing. Couple that with the local system of buying phones and contracts separately as you please, and things add up to nice and easy.

Qualitywise, IMHO it's simply about the frequency of base stations. I don't remember having had problems with coverage in what, 6 years? Even up there in the middle of Lapland, this part of the globe is covered.

Talking about phones, I'm about to commit an unpatriotic act and buy American . Anyone else interested in the new Motorola v600 ?

J

GSM all the way.. I believe GSM providers can give us more features than CMDA providers do.

The carriers themselves make decisions about what features to offer, and it's not related to the underlying technology. CDMA has TDMA beat hands down when it comes to data speed and network capacity.

That looks nice, but I have NEVER met a single person who's owned a Motorola mobile he was satisfied with.

Anecdotal, I know, but I know a couple of people who've owned Motorolas, and none of them ever bought one again. Problems included unreliability, unintelligible speech, flimsy construction, and battery problems.

-s*

What I like about the world wide GSM capability is that things such as MMS (Video, Picture, Audio and Text Messaging) work all over the place.

GSM vs. CDMA?

You may as well ask about Windows vs. Mac. The parallels are startling.

Same thing in Canada, Fido and Rogers are on GSM and Fido has deals with about 70 countries for roaming and I have free international text messaging which im starting to use alot.

What about UMTS? When is that coming?

I much prefer the sound quality and noise cancellation features of CDMA, but the phones generally suck.

How on earth do you arrive at the conclusion that NTSC has a "tiny" share of the world market?!? Not only is it used in the largest single market (the U.S.), but also in Canada, Japan, South Korea, and most of Central and South America. So while PAL and SECAM may claim that a larger number of countries use it, remember that many of those countries are rather small -- many of the countries that use NTSC are HUGE markets.

As for the original question... CDMA technology is clearly superior, per se. But the handsets made for CDMA are just awful -- nowhere near as much development is put into them as into GSM handsets. If we could convince Nokia and Sony-Ericsson to put half as much effort into CDMA as they do into GSM, I'd be dancing in the street.

tooki

P.S. Remember that the next-generation GSM is supposed to be based on CDMA technology, not the TDMA technology the current GSM standards use. Note also that all the non-GSM TDMA networks are being deprecated -- the providers that use them are pushing GSM now.

The "GSM/CDMA to 3G UMTS (either WCDMA or CDMA2000) via (E)GPRS" - evolutionary path isn't easy to explain.

This site by Ericsson is a good attempt.

And this page shortly describes the acronyms and their dependencies.

As for when, who knows. GPRS is big here right now, with MMS messaging becoming what Japan had a few years ago with iMode.

J