CDMA or GSM?

[Chinasaur]

What do you use?

[Scoofy12]

if you're making a choice, basically its CDMA if you go verizon, GSM if you go Cingular. not sure about nextel/sprint, but both of the big 2 have pretty big networks.

[Chuck]

For me, it's GSM all the way. T-mobile, Cingular, and now AT&T (owned by Cing.) is GSM. I believe Sprint is transitioning or planning a transition to GSM. Nextel is GSM, but keeps their network closed and did something special for walkie-talkie mode and also allow them to work in lesser populated areas with fewer towers.

T-mobile is, of course, owned by Deutsche Telekomm, and hence GSM good in all of Europe.. which is great for me again. I find it also works lots of other places. Last time I looked, GSM was good in over 120, or was it 130, countries... CDMA is definately good in the Washington DC Metro (it was wired for it and Congress).

On a technical note, I wish the GSM packet redundancy count was higher. It's unfortunately too easy to drop a few packets in a fringe area and miss a word or (worse) drop the connection. The frequency bands are fine as long as we can keep the 850mhz and 900mhz bands... otherwise GSM will have issues in the US... Now, if we got permission in the US to run GSM alongside the old analog frequencies, we'ld be set, but that will never happen, but then maybe Nextel got them. ? Question is: Will Nextel join into the public GSM world?

I can't remember the pros and cons of CDMA, but just a few weeks ago, I gave my GSM phone to a friend to use when his didn't work... and I'm pretty sure it was Verizon or Sprint, which would be CDMA. The problem was connection stability.... I only had 2 of 5 bars of signal strength, he had all 5.

One nice thing for me is the bluetooth (short and long range) popularity with GSM units. GSM/USB2/E-net/firewire... all interoperable for me.

FYI: The GSM tower feeds for T-mobile (just the data aspect) is going to multiple OC-3 lines in all metro US areas (Cing/Tmo are doing all of California right now). There are even more lines going in for the voice traffic. This capacity is extending to all the whole GSM network which will just about eliminate ANY type of 'roaming'. (I have a friend who works on the WIP core at TMO so I hear the good and bad as each metro area gets ripped up and traffic has to be re-routed)



Before anyone asks...

a) No, I'm not a sales rep.

b) Would I leave T-mobile for Nextel or something better? *** IN A HEARTBEAT *** I want Nextel, but can't get it where I'm at and do what I want/need with it yet.



so... there it is FWIW.

Chuck

[tim]

If you go to the midwest, better not be gsm, at least cingular gsm. East coast = all gsm. West coast mostly gsm. Midwest = if you're at all rural, fuhgettaboutit.

I'm going to have to switch to verizon.