Verizon: Why CDMA?
 

Why does Verizon stay with CDMA when so many other countries and carriers are GSM?

What is the difference, and is either network better for any reason?

-simpson

Verizon does have Hybrid phones that have both CDMA and GSM technology. GSM in america is not developed enough to be a GREAT service. Verizon is a GREAT service. I have heard that they plan on building up their GSM network here in the americas within the next few years. I have also heard that they will stick with CDMA, so who know...


And yes, CDMA is BETTER. Much more reliable. However in Europe, their GSM is far more advanced than ours. As is always the case, Europe's cellular technology is always 3ish years ahead of ours here in America..

Soft cellsite handoffs!
 

Do a Google search on CDMA soft handoff, for starters. That is but one reason why CDMA is considered a superior technology by many.

Here ya go...

http://www.gemplus.com/techno/cdma/

There are definitely factors beyond the technical aspects to consider. I wouldn't really worry about the underlying technology so much as the practical quality of coverage, pricing, customer service, and how important international travel is to you.

We use verizon broadband pcmcia cards for our laptops. somebody in the office had a cingular account and wanted to use their card. i ran a speed test on both. the verizon card was near cable internet speed and the cingular card was running at about 3k (took a couple times to even load the test page). i work in cincinnati, oh which is a medium to large size city. i use cingular for my wife's phone and they do have good phone coverage here, but the data seems to be a bit sketchy. we ended up canceling the service for that card. after 4 hours on the phone trying to figure out why it was barely working i was put on with someone who said that my area does not have the high speed wireless yet (i assume that is there "G" network). they still charged us the cancellation fee since we had the card a month before installing it.

Cingular is the largest mobile phone company in the US in terms of subscribers and really high-speed (EDGE) data coverage. Yes, EVDO from Verizon is faster, but the coverage is weak even around many metro areas (NYC and Philly, just to name two). Would you care to elaborate on why GSM in America isn't "developed enough?"

How is CDMA "much more reliable?" While Europe may have a year (maybe two) head start with UMTS and 3G handsets/datacards in general, it is starting to become available in many major US markets. It's not like we're on AMPS and they're making video calls from their mobiles.

I know it's not the best idea to feed the trolls, but this posts like this bug me -- FUD just stinks.

Please don't start on a rant about how awesome imperial measures are compared to metric, or how Cingular CS burned you but Verizon is l33t, etc. I'm just asking you to defend your post with some concrete facts.

It sounds like you had a bad EDGE card, or an old card with only GPRS. You should have seen around 120Kbps (15 kilobytes/sec) if you had an EDGE-capable card in a EDGE service area. That's about 4-5x slower than I usually can get with Sprint EVDO, but I'm more likely to get 1X than EVDO when travelling. And that is usually slower than EDGE.

I bet if you went a half hour out of town, that you would lose that VZ speed advantage.

I'm not an advocate for CDMA but from what I have heard the GSM is more developed in Europe. I think that's it's just deployed better in Europe. There just seems to be a lot more area for us to cover in the U.S. and many areas in the U.S. still fair better with an analog signal.

i live 45 minutes north of the city and the verizon card is just as fast there. the cingular card is brand new. it is there 3G Option GT Max card. the problem is that cincinnati apparently does not have the luxury of the edge network. cincinnati is not that great of city (putting it nicely) so i don't blame cingular for not investing in it.

i still have the card in my office. since we can't get any kind of refund on it i will most likely have to trash it after it sits on a shelf for a couple years.

It all boils down to what you need basically.

I use GSM with T-Mo because they don't charge me outrageous fees for data, and no additional charge for tethering. Also, my travels take me out of the country where I can't use verizon CDMA

The maps can be wrong, but it looks like there is EDGE from Cingular there... Odd.

I wish GSM was more developed in the US, or the CDMA carriers used RUIM or USIM cards that were compatible with GSM phones for roaming.

I have been on both sides of the CDMA / GSM world and technologically I am more impressed with CDMA. The evolutionary path for GSM is GSM>GPRS>EDGE>UMTS/HSPDA>WCDMA. So eventually GSM operators will be using a flavor of CDMA.

But you are correct about ignoring the underlying technology. My CDMA phone isn't very useful at home with a -95dbm signal. My GSM phone works great, all because TMO has a cell site across the street and the nearest VZW site is miles away.

I don't know what its like in the States, but here in Australia - CDMA coverage is a lot larger with less base stations.

International Roaming is nearly non-existant with CDMA, we can only roam in about 4 countries (last time I checked) and one wasnt the US

you guys are lost Code Division Multiple Access is so much better than GSM and cheaper to upgrade in the future. The reason why Europe and some 3rd world countries use GSM is because it is so cheap to start instead of CDMA. Japan uses forms CDMA(wcdma), and cingulars fastest service is actuall a form of CDMA, wCDMA they just call it something else so they wont be mixed in with CDMA/verizon. To upgrade GSM it costs a large amount of money which will hinder the evolution and spread of the high speed gsm(wcdma).

CDMA is fast, more secure, can hold more channels, and is cheaper to upgrade in the long run. The comment about Cingular having the largest coverage is bunk, the can say that all they want but JD power has ranked Verizon and its CDMA coverage as the best for the past 6 years, and also check out Consumer reports verizon doesnt need indepent studies they have the best coverage by far.

FYI - UMTS/HSDPA = W-CDMA