Attention Americans. Explain some stuff to a Brit.

[eric12341]

It's like this, people prefer Verizon because they have the most coverage, and people prefer AT&T for the best phones and coverage as well. That being said as a result the prices are very high and are twice than what I am paying on T-mobile for comparable services (I get coverage wherever I'm at so I don't care).

CDMA- phones are restricted only to the carrier and the data is programmed onto them. Its also not as easy to switch phones. CDMA albeit with better signal strength, it has poorer capacity and slower speeds than GSM. For example CDMA EvDO speeds can only top out at 3.5mbps (sprint only maxes out at 768kbps due to its capacity issues and averages much lower).

GSM-uses SIM cards, has better signal quality, capacity and faster speeds.

 

[Rich White]

It varies from year-to-year.

Sprint was quickest at 3G rollouts to my area (rural) with the best coverage for years from 2001-2007. Virgin and the lesser names use the Sprint ClearWire backbone for their products. They have a big FAIL on 4G,

T-Mobile I like but they are slower on the LTE network buildout. They are becoming the next Sprint. I'd have T-Mobile now if they offered the 920 and same deal as ATT. Financially strapped I expect them to merge or implode. I just left T-Mobile ,,,,,,,,

That leaves the other 2. The plans I saw on Verizon for the Nokias were simply outrageous due to their restriction to shared plans with a 45 surcharge. .

That left me with ATT which is slower than Verizon in my area and costs $100 a month for the 5GB Hotspot plan with 450 minutes and taxes, etc.

 

[willied]

Is it really that hard to get out of a phone contract in the States?
I had an 18 month contract with o2 that ran out beginning of September. It'll just roll each month now at the same price unless I make a change.
I've now given my 30 day notice, no qualms at all. They gave me the PAC code straight away. I'll give this to EE when my 920 turns up tomorrow, they'll move my existing number to my new sim and that will signal the last day of my o2 contract.
To be fair it's only recent changes in European Law that have forced networks to make migration that simple.

It's not that hard to go from one carrier to another, I just think it gets complicated when you have a family plan and everyone's contracts end at different times (I think that's how it is anyway...), and then you'll most likely have to get a new phone if you go to another network. And once you've been on Verizon you don't want to downgrade to the others, even with them being cheaper.

 

[-Scienide-]

Oh and America, **** YEAH! lol. Just being silly.

This cracked me up lol.

As for the rest of your post, really good. Thanks. Explained a lot to me. Cheers for that.

 

[-Scienide-]

In England all the carriers pretty much have the same handsets. Occasionally you get a phone that is exclusive to a network for a couple of months or exclusive in a certain colour but you can still go out and buyt the phone sim free from a phone shop. Its pretty easy to pick and choose a network and I would say its quite common to move around networks in the UK.

I myself havent stayed on the same network at all.

I've been on:

Genie Mobile
Vodafone
T-Mobile
O2
Three
and a few older ones I cant remember anymore.

Switching networks is a no brainer over here as the prices are so competitive between the networks that they have to work really hard to keep you. I just go for the best data plans on the lowest tariff everytime.

 

[mrmdj31675]

CDMA is not obsolete or dead by any means. Once SVDO (Simultaneous Voice and Data Operation) is in place on carriers outside the US (yes, Sprint and Verizon currently use this standard for CDMA), the technology will rise again, especially on places worldwide where Nextel will have to find a way to bring 3G data, and with iDen it cannot be done (which is why Sprint is making sure Direct Connect is perfected in order to have a new PTT standard, and more likely not be GSM based as iDen was.

 

[crystal_planet]

CDMA is not obsolete or dead by any means. Once SVDO (Simultaneous Voice and Data Operation) is in place on carriers outside the US (yes, Sprint and Verizon currently use this standard for CDMA), the technology will rise again, especially on places worldwide where Nextel will have to find a way to bring 3G data, and with iDen it cannot be done (which is why Sprint is making sure Direct Connect is perfected in order to have a new PTT standard, and more likely not be GSM based as iDen was.

No one will switch back to CDMA outside the US or even inside for that matter. GSM is entirely too convenient for carriers and consumers alike.

Like a few have mentioned, CDMA has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel up here. I'd love to see a business model in the future where you buy your handset at a non descript phone store anywhere in the world and throw your sim in and be done with it.

 

[Robinsonmac]

CDMA is not dead by any means. China mobile which has 650 million customers uses CDMA and is growing. The largest carrier in India which has 475 million customers also uses CDMA. That plus the US customers on CDMA is 1.2 Billion that's almost 1/2 of the total cell phone market in the world......

 

[brmiller1976]

Again, CDMA is dying off. The carriers overseas who still use it are phasing it out, and Verizon and Sprint have plans to shut it down within a decade.

Once VoLTE handsets are out, CDMA becomes especially silly. The network will be operated as a legacy network for old devices, but towers will be shut off, coverage will decline and eventually the whole thing will go dark as CDMA devices get swapped for LTE ones.

Even Qualcomm, which invented CDMA, has a migration plan to GSM/LTE for its customers on EVDO.

 

[mrmdj31675]

It does, but what about when a VoLTE network goes fown? GSM and CDMA networks will be backups, so they're not going anywhere.

Why do I say this? In order to depend only on a VoLTE network, that network will have to be always on and no interruptions of any kind when it comes to servers and backbone, and that theory of running on VoLTE only would only work in a perfect word. This is why providers will invest on modernizing their 3G and 4G networks as they will become the backup for VoLTE, something Sprint is currently doing (Network Vision equipment has the flexibility to add new technology as it becomes available, and which leaves the usage of VoLTE open and possible in the future, as well as securing their 3G and 4G networks), and soon enough all providers will have to do before they run into serious bandwidth issues

 

[-Scienide-]

Seems like I've opened up a can of worms here lol

 

[mrmdj31675]

And how do you also expect Nextel at the international level to use iDen (which is GSM based) provide 3G data service sometime in this lifetime? Let me give you a little secret. They are watching very closely on how Direct Connect and Network Vision deployment at Sprint goes for an idea on how to approach the future (perhaps not fully dependent on CDMA, but having that as an option since for some reason is more flexible for PTT than GSM actually is and proven with the miserable failure of AT&T's idea they had for a PTT competitor but could not figure the 3G/4G data and PTT when it comes to increasing offerings to smartphones without the use of a dedicated app).

Once again, CDMA may not be the norm worldwide, but is far from dead with all the advancements. Sure, GSM would be far easier to run, but to do PTT with 3G/4G data speeds even on open GSM is not a choice Nextel want to take a risk on.