Techs & Trends

I said that GSM is a stepping stone to WCDMA, not CDMA. I case you do not know that would be Broadband CDMA, which is the future of all cellular systems, but with a TDMA service there is no way to go directly yo WCDMA that is why ATT went to GSM so that they can make the next step.
Yes CDMA is the most secure cellular network, why do you think that it is the government standard?? Because it is easy to eaves drop on CDMA networks, I think not.
And the fewest dropped calls is a fact. Check consumer reports (Feb. 2004) VZW fewest dropped calls and least amount of overloaded circuits.

Oh yeah mmdstech2,
I forgot to mention that VZW is able to provide the highest levels of customer satisfaction while having the most customers to satisfy, about 25% of all cellular customers are VZW customers, or about 40 million people.

VZW also has the second lowest churn rate of any cellular company at 23%. And that number will only get better once the new push to talk phones are released. Because the lowest churn belongs to Nextel, and I have a feeling that is mainly due to an awesome PPT system. It certainly is not because of their second rate telephony system.

Second rate telephony? Why is it that everyone bashes iDEN technology when Nextel clearly is doing a great job with it? Nextel has had a 2.5g packet data network in place from day one. And, by the way it's called interconnect, and it's not second rate. VZW had had a push to talk (push to wait) service in place since September and it sucks!! Dropped calls depend on allot of things, not if it's GSM or CDMA. People is these forums tend to talk about CDMA VS GSM like it's the only factor in choosing a carrier. Every carrier has there own set of standards for optimization. Drop and blocked calls have more to do with the number of BTS's, type of enviroment and a number of other things, not just if they use CDMA or GSM. Why don't you educate us all...
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Nextel does a great job with its Direct Connect, I cannot take that away from them. But its interconnect service is mediocre at best. I know a few people who have Nextel and every time I call them I get this message, "Please wait while the Nextel subscriber you are calling is located." and then 10-15 seconds later the phone finally starts to ring. This occurs both from my land line phone and from my cellular phone. When I place a call to other cellular phones it rings immediately, just as if I was calling a land line. So you talk about push to wait form VZW, but I wait every time I place a call to a nextel phone.

As far as 2.5G that is old hat, it is time for 3G data packets. 2.7 mbps is what VZW is capable of currently in Washin...
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As far as 2.5G that is old hat, it is time for 3G data packets. 2.7 mbps is what VZW is capable of currently in Washington DC and San Diego and you will begin to see it in more and more areas starting this summer. ????????????

EV-DO has data throughput around 300-500kbps, not 2.7 mbps. 2.7 mbps would be over twice the speed of a DS-1!! There decision to launch this nationwide is very cool. However, living where your phone roams on Sprint allot of the time, it will be a another coverage map of this works here, not here.

You are correct that the average connection speed for EV-DO is 300-500k, but the bursting speed is up to 2.7 mbps. You are totally correct in that it does require a seperate coverage map, it will only work in areas where VZW actually owns the digital towers. But it is very cool and very fast. I cannot wait until I am able to get it where I live.

Do you know who the vendor will be for this upgrade? I know they are using different infrastructure in the two markets right now.

mmdstech2 said:
Do you know who the vendor will be for this upgrade? I know they are using different infrastructure in the two markets right now.

I cannot claim to know such information.

jhmlbrgr , You have stated that CDMA is a more secure network that GSM or iDEN. I want to see some facts on this, not just that the military used it. I would like to see you try and eavesdrop on a iDEN network. Good luck! It won't happen.

I could not eavesdrop on any network, I am not hacker savvy.

jhmlbrgr - I thought Verizon went from tdma to cdma? What is the difference between cdma and gsm? When will verizon get the wcdma?

Anderson1,
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you said: I thought Verizon went from tdma to cdma?
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You thought wrong. Verizon, nor its legacy companies have never used TDMA technology. That is why Bell Atlantic (Verizon legacy company) was slightly later entering the digital cellular market than say ATT. As you may or may not know the cellular market started as all analogue (Amps) and as the number of subscribers increased there was a need for a better, more efficient system. ATT took TDMA technology (which was currently available) and ran with it, Bell Atlantic decided to wait for the government to declassify CDMA technology, a standard that Qualcomm developed for the gov...
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Given what you said, that would put Verizon firmly in position to hold its dominant position in the States. Why then would Vodiphone make an offer for ATT instead of going after Verizon in a takeover? (Which it already owns 45%.) 😕

They still have a number of pops covered only by TDMA where they haven't overlayed with GSM. These markets are due to get a upgrade by next year with there EDGE platform.

starting in '03, some areas in the n.e. that attws has service can only activate on gsm only now.

I forgot it was 2004 in my last post!! I meant in 2004 they will continue there upgrade. I just went to AT&T website and found 6 phones they sell that work on TDMA.


http://www.attwireless.com/personal/products/phones. ... »

yeah, still have tdma's phone's but again certain area's of the northeast can only activate on gsm only, part of the reason why the website asks for your zip code (some area's are still tdma only, other area's are gsm only, and other area's can't activate any service).

Fyi... Look out for Global phone from Verizon phones soon... I have seen many new phones in development and if you take a close look at the nokia 3589 under the cover is a GSM SIM CARD SLOT.

Cheers.... 😁

Man jhm you need to get your facts straight.


WCDMA is NOT broadband, its WIDEBAND Code Division Multiple Access.
GSM is not 'dressed up' version of TDMA. It offers more slots per channgel then CDMA, which doesn't even really matter because the customer will see NO difference whatsoever.

1xEV-DO Is Verizons high speed access offer coming out over the next FEW YEARS, just because they said they were going to go national, they said it will take a while. Don't expect it nationally with any decent coverage for a long, long time.

EV-DV is just something atop CDMA Sprints going to use that allows better voice quality and data speeds, nothing insanely faster.

UMTS (WCDMA) is what AT&T Wireless is looking forward to, which eventually w...
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Actually, WCDMA is broadband. Remember to be considered broadband, your data rate needs to be 128kbps or faster which WCDMA will be. GSM takes a 200khz channel and divides it into 8 timeslots. EV-DV(evolution data voice) will provide much faster data rates that Sprints current 1X network. To the best of my knowledge, Sprint has not formally announced there roadmap to next generation technology.

First of all lets look at the calls per channel. CDMA has a capacity of 10 calls per channel and GSM has a capacity of 8 calls per channel. Now I do not know what kind of math you use, but here in the real world 10 is more than 8. And customers will see a difference because with GSM the customer is more likely to get the dreaded all circuits are busy message on their phone than are CDMA customers.

Secondly does GSM divide up the calls into packets of time??? Yes it does, so it is a more efficient or "dressed up" version of TDMA.

Thirdly, did the VZW press release say a long, long time?? Or did it say that you will begin to see it in more cities starting summer '04??? It will not take nearly as long as you are implying, but yes ...
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TDMA also takes a RF channel and multiplexes. Hence the name time division multiple access.

UMTS (WCDMA) will offer much greater speeds then EV-DO, kiddies. In fact, once the capacity is available, up to 2mbps (though I doubt it'll ever reach that speed, ever.. it'll be way faster then EV-DO /OR/ EV-DV.)

'All circuts are busy' issues are a thing of the past, the entire time I'v worked for AWS I'v had maby three times had this happen, twicr during the northeast blackout, and once during hurricane isabelle. There is NO difference that a customer can see, and in fact GSM offers more features then CDMA can boast, such as SIM cards.. just take a look at the difference between the CDMA and GSM carriers. The only major problem GSM has right now is capacity issues DUE TO IT BEING A NEWER NETWORK, not because 'they suck'.

Do your home...
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Well allow me to retort.

1. EV-DO does allow for burst speeds of up to 2.8mbps, the 300-500k is the average connection speed. What will be the average connection speed of UMTS??

2. Oh so you are telling me that a customer cannot see the difference when they place a call during an emergency situation and they get the "All circuits are busy" with ATT and the person next to them places a call at the same time with VZW and gets through. Tell the people in New York City during the 9-11 crisis that they could not see that happen to them. Let me tell you that it did. I know someone who's daughter was in NYC during the crisis and many, many people asked her if they could use her VZW phone to call their families because their (fill in the...
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Nextel phones use SIM cards as well and I can attest that 99% of phone upgrades and failed swap outs go very smoothly when all we do is remove the SIM card and install it in the new phone. When you turn the phone on it reads the SIM then identifies itself to the network... the network in turn delivers the the functionality that user is entitled to. The subscribers memory is harbored in the SIM and the phone becomes immediately viable. No call to customer service, no need to reload memory... It really does make things easier. Thats what I can tell you about SIM driven phones.

Additionally, once these TDMA carriers cut over their complete networks to GSM the call blocking will be a non-issue. Lets face it this is just a transitional problem as they sunset the TDMA technology. We are seeing this same transition with our local TDMA carrier as they slowly change out antenna arrays, install GSM transceivers, and install combiners to incorporate them to the new antennas. Our guess is 24 months before the aggressive push to get the TDMA phones off the network... by them sly marketing types will have already started the "incentives". So our GSM capacity is low right now... in 12 months... in 24 months it will be more than adequate. As we expect with ATTW and Cingular.

MANIAC,
When you put the sim card in the phone does it require that you change the serial number of the phone in the system or does that happen automatically??? I am just wondering.

If its the ESN that you are referring to... YES, the GSM equivalent of an ESN is the SIM I.D.... It is supported there, in the SIM. Just slide it in and rock n' roll. Pretty cool, no customer service involved. The network is set up differently than you would conventionally be used to... It is almost as if the handset is like a networked computer. It is enabled by the network and the SIM is like a network I.D.... Kinda'.

Other interesting info: We had a customer drop their i60 down a well... Yes a well... They pumped 6' of water out in order to retrieve the phone... they knew it would be shot but hoped the SIM would still be good... We plugged the SIM into a loaner handset and it booted up just fine... His 100+ contact list in place, acces...
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I think he meant imei. It doesn't automatically change in the system. You don't have to change it for the phone to work, but you want to call and change it for warranty reasons.

No, I did mean the ESN. Thanks to both of you for the answer. I will admit that is a nice feature of the SIM card, I am still not totally sold on it though.
Their are other ways to keep your phonebook, even if the phone is no longer functional.

VZW just came out with a Get It Now feature called iPhonebook. It allows you to access all of your MS Outlook contacts from your phone. Think it is pretty cool. They also have another called iDatebook, that allows you to access you MS Outlook calender though your phone. Thier is also the voice gear feature that allows to store all of your contacts on the network and have them all (up to 2000 contacts and 7 numbers for each contact) on voice activating dialing. Another option is just to...
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Alot of the major carriers have enlisted a web based solution for their customers contact management... I have "Address Book" on my Nextel account... It allows me to enter a contact at my web page at their web site and download them to the handset... and vice versa, I can load a contact on the fly and open up my web browser to upload it to the web page. I think every Sprint customer gets the same sort of thing also... a web page at the carrier web site for account maintenance that offer a contact management solution. We haven't sold Sprint in over a year but that was how it was then.

My question is: If a conventional handset is rendered useless because of water damage or some other reason preventing power up or keypad functions what reco...
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From my experience with damaged phones, if the phone can't be powered up you won't be able to extract the info...it sucks!

The keypad does not necessarily have to function to extract the numbers, but the phone does have to power on. I did admit earlier that the phone book thing was a nice use of the SIM card. I do have a question though, is the SIM card getting wet and still working the norm or an occasional thing?? I know that if a pone gets wet sometimes if you act quickly you can dry it out and get to to work, but of course that is not the norm.

The SIM card is actually incredibly durable. I've had mine for about 3 years, I've sent it through the washing machine 3 times (within about a week), and it's outlived 4 different models of phones. While exchanges for phones are common, it's very rare that a customer needs a new sim card.

That is interesting to know. Thank you for your insight.

I never said CDMA wasn't good, just that GSM hasn't had time, or the spectrum to expand enough at this time to truely shine. Give it a few years and GSM (as well as fledgeling UMTS) will complete, if not defeat CDMA technology. 🙂
UMTS (or the underlying technology WCDMA) can reach speeds of 3mbps, which will never be seen since the spectrum needed for that is just not available, and system capacity isn't allowable for it, so speeds roughly cable/DSL is likely, faster then DV-DO once spectrum is worked oyut. 🙂

Sorry, 2mbps for UMTS. 🙂

If UMTS will do DSL like speeds than it will not be faster than EV-DO because EV-DO does DSL like speeds (300-500 k), which is exactly what is advertised by DSL providers. So we are looking at similar speeds.

When do you think the upgrade to WCDMA will offer? And what will be different between CDMA and WDMA? And just to be a devils advocate, is WCDMA is the stuff of the future, why is the gold standard worldwide GSM?
Cheers,
Harry

if I'm not mistaken, CDMA and its based technilogies are patented by some certain companies. It IS, I admit, technically better then GSM due to the flexability it offers with it just being "Code' instead of "time" division. I have no clue why they chose GSM to be the global standard over CDMA, but most providers offer it globally, as well it will eventually offer 'global' communications via sattalites and the like, with the onset of WCDMA which, as Rich said, isn't really based on either GSM OR CDMA for that matter, though it is code based it does things alot different. Maby Rich could explain it better hes the genious here that we all bow to 😛

CDMA companies are going the route of CDMA2000, and related technologies for their 3G path, su...
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When I explain CDMA to customers, I use an analogy that I read somewhere which seems to make it easy enough for the common consumer to understand. Imagin being in a room, full of people with everyone talking at the same time. Now imagin everyone is speaking in a different language except for you and the person you're having a conversation with. You're going to understand him/her if you're both speaking english, while everyone else is speaking russian, spanish, french, etc...This usually paints a good picture of what CDMA is.

Now why did they choose GSM to be the global standard instead of CDMA? CDMA technology is really EXPENSIVE. Sprint phones, for example, are some of the most expensive on the market, their rate plans are expensi...
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hkopolov said:
When do you think the upgrade to WCDMA will offer?

WCDMA is live now in Japan, Australia, and parts of Europe. AT&T has promised to launch it in a handful of cities by the end of this year. However, nationwide WCDMA is impossible at the moment because it takes more spectrum than any one carrier has the moment.

If AT&T merges with Cingular, they should have enough, but it would still be difficult and expensive. They may have to start shutting down analog and TDMA networks earlier than planned to do it right.

And even then, the speeds would not be anywhere near other parts of the world due to the tight spectrum. It might not even be noticeably faster than EDGE. For full-speed WCDMA, we'l...
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Could this thread be any LONGER???????

mmdstech said:
Could this thread be any LONGER???????

ok
😁

iccd = sim esn
imei = phone (shell) esn

the iccd is what matter's as far as the system is concerned. imei really only usefull for waranty purposes.

sim is great because you can transfer your contacts to the sim and use it from there or transfer to another phone. and also as has been mentioned earlier is that it make it much easier to swap/exchange phones.

jhmlbrgr said:
... 3. How about a list of those features?? What is the real benefit of a sim card??? Please explain it to me. I am a huge gadget guy and no one to this point has been able to sell me on the real world functionality of a sim card. ...

I don't really take sides on GSM vs. CDMA - there are things I love and hate about each. However, I did recently port my primary phone number from a CDMA carrier to a GSM one, and SIM cards were a part of the reason. Here are two reasons:

1. I literally change phones more often than I change my underwear. I might use my Bluetooth phone at my desk (with my BT headset), then carry my smartphone to a meeting, then take my camera phone out on a bike trip thro...
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Rich,
Thanks for your insight. I can see how the SIM can be useful to you, but the two examples you gave would not apply to a very large percentage of the population.
The having three or four options for phones is not something that is going to be very common place. Cellular service is the technology most people love to hate and having more than one option of which phone to carry is not something that will appeal to the masses.
The European travel is a valid point, but again not a feature most people will use. Besides that VZW is slated to have a CDMA/GSM phone sometime this year, so that will be one less advantage a GSM carrier will be able to say they have.
I do appreciate your time in responding to this thre...
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You're right. I'm sure plenty of people in the U.S. with GSM phones don't care or even realize it has a SIM.

However, I continue to be surprised on that point - every time I meet a GSM user, more often than not, they know about SIMs and think they're great. I've been at the bar with friends, and someone mentioned SIM cards. My CDMA-using friends asked about it, I explained it, and they all said "wow - cool - I wish my phone had that!". Seriously - even if they wouldn't use it everyday, anyone can appreciate the ability to just pop a SIM in a phone and have it instantly be your phone - phonebook and all.

On a more practical note: one of my friends a few months ago broke his GSM phone. That very day he started shopping for a new phone an...
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Personally, GSM/GRPS/EDGE the system itself in general is neck and neck with CDMA and its counterpart 1xRTT, if not better. When put to practical use, though, the providers unfortunately have not had enough time to make GSM truely shine, so its considered inferior at the moment in comparison to CDMA and its technolgies. Give it time. 🙂

Great post. I was a VZW/CDMA customer for 3 years until I came across the benefits of a SIM card. I enjoy the memory saving and storing convenience, along with the fact that you can switch phones less than a minute! I ported my number over to T-Mobile and I am hooked to the GSM/SIM card benefits. But I have to agree that it really depends on your lifestyle and cell phone habits because everyone is different and we all have different needs.

There's something for everyone!

The 2 best thing about a sim card are

1. You can stroe you entire phone bok on it so when you upgrade3 phones you dont have to enter all that informatin again.

2. A phone can be swaped out for a differnt phone every day. not that there are many people that do this but itis nice.