who will be winner in US between GSM and CDMA

[hrkim5]

I'm wondering who will be winner in US wireless carrier player (CDMA or GSM) in near future ?

[Mobile Mike]

Originally Posted by hrkim5

I'm wondering who will be winner in US wireless carrier player (CDMA or GSM) in near future ?

Neither. Technically GSM will live on with UMTS/WCDMA and eventually LTE, but GSM as we know it will be history.

The same is true for CDMA. Verizon will eventually go with LTE, aligning it with one of it's parents, Vodafone.

Ultimately, it looks like the GSM architecture will eventually win out as Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Alltel are heading toward LTE.

Sprint's leaning on WiMAX.

Keep in mind, all of this is 3 to 4 years away.

[walkguru]

Wirelessly posted (Walkguru's: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D062; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

their both winners.

[WumpusVA]

Originally Posted by Mobile Mike

Keep in mind, all of this is 3 to 4 years away.

I can't wait to see the day...

[RJB]

Well if things were not changing and stayed the same I would say they both have good and bad things.

[erwinpiero]

Well it's not kind of competition, in my opinion, they complete each other. In US where one of CDMA was born, it has strong foundation and well-known on how market does, GSM comes later, but it's worldwide communication and dominating till know. Well let Us choose which one suit our needs

[Mobile Mike]

Unfortunately, the way the OP asked the question leaves a lot open to interpretation. Asking who will be the "winner" in the US between GSM and CDMA is too complex a question to be asked in a simple manner. Are we talking about the technologies? Implementation? Upgrade path? Flexibility? What exactly?

Answering it in a "simple" form comes down to which one an individual likes more, which is the classical CDMA/GSM debate that has raged on in blogs, forums, and the like for over a decade.

The answer is: There is no ONE answer.

[RadioRaiders]

I've got all my money riding on iDen. Go Nextel!

[Mobile Mike]

Originally Posted by RadioRaiders

I've got all my money riding on iDen. Go Nextel!

RadioRaiders, I think you're on to something!

[Simon5282]

Originally Posted by Mobile Mike

RadioRaiders, I think you're on to something!

What about TDMA??? I still think they have a chance at a comeback.

To the OP, the 2G and 3G competition is over. There will never be a winner. Three of the big four, and the largest regional have all committed to LTE for 4G, which will be the worldwide standard.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by Simon5282

What about TDMA??? I still think they have a chance at a comeback.

To the OP, the 2G and 3G competition is over. There will never be a winner. Three of the big four, and the largest regional have all committed to LTE for 4G, which will be the worldwide standard.

If any argument is to be made, I'd say GSM because LTE evolved from the GSM side.

-Jay

[cowboytn]

I would say cdma verizon wireless vodaphone

[Mobile Mike]

Originally Posted by cowboytn

I would say cdma verizon wireless vodaphone

If Verizon were staying with CDMA, you could be right, but they're heading toward LTE, which will put them in the same camp as AT&T and T-Mobile.

It looks like LTE will win, not CDMA or GSM (as we now know them).

[cowboytn]

gsm and cdma are 2 different technologies so how could they go to Lte if it consists of the gsm technology of att, tmobile it would be incompatible like sprint/nextel what i see myself is verizon
buying alltel and becoming the largest carrier in history and also the largest network across the us. leaving sprint way behind and becoming larger than att 71.1 million customers, att reconized at the present the largest wireless company since the merger of cingular and att,
2nd largest wireless company verizon wireless both companies gained customers from sprint's
loss reported in jan 2008 of the 1.2 million customer loss which seperate into 2 groups some went to att and some went to verizon wireless i don 't see how gsm and cdma could possibly
be made compatible with each other but you could be right but i just don't see it possible.

[Mobile Mike]

Originally Posted by cowboytn

gsm and cdma are 2 different technologies so how could they go to Lte if it consists of the gsm technology of att, tmobile it would be incompatible like sprint/nextel what i see myself is verizon
buying alltel and becoming the largest carrier in history and also the largest network across the us. leaving sprint way behind and becoming larger than att 71.1 million customers, att reconized at the present the largest wireless company since the merger of cingular and att,
2nd largest wireless company verizon wireless both companies gained customers from sprint's
loss reported in jan 2008 of the 1.2 million customer loss which seperate into 2 groups some went to att and some went to verizon wireless i don 't see how gsm and cdma could possibly
be made compatible with each other but you could be right but i just don't see it possible.

You haven't been reading the many different threads on this subject in the Wireless News forum (you might have to scan a few pages).

Verizon is going LTE, and there have been successful tests done on a hand-off from CDMA to LTE. This has been reported by Phonescoop and others. Verizon will finally be on the same network type as their other parent company, Vodafone.

LTE is part of the GSM path, but it is being adopted by Verizon for their 4G path, though years away. The CDMA parallel to LTE is UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband), but neither Verizon or Sprint intend to implement it.

I'm well aware of the differences and incompatibilities between CDMA and GSM.

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by cowboytn

gsm and cdma are 2 different technologies so how could they go to Lte if it consists of the gsm technology of att, tmobile it would be incompatible like sprint/nextel .

Asking if GSM or CDMA will win is kind of a moot point, because you're asking which 2G technology will win, when the 2G race has allready been run.

In the bigger scope, there are 2 main mobile phone tracks:

3GPP: GSM (2G) -> EDGE (2.5G) -> UMTS (3G) -> HSxPA (3.5 G) -> LTE (4G)
3GPP2: CDMA (2G) -> EVDO (3G) -> UMB (4G)

(Note: 3GPP and 3GPP2 are not related)


GSM and CDMA are both 2G technologies. GSM is used by 85% of the world, CDMA is used by 15% of the world. I would say GSM won globally. In the USA it's split about 50/50.

When 4G comes about (which isn't too far away, maybe only 2 years) it will be new and basically incompatible with all of the current technologies (altho since it's developed by 3GPP, the "GSM guys" it will have more in common with GSM/UMTS in terms of backwards compatibility). So anyway all the carriers will be upgrading to a brand new technology. Verizon will go to LTE (which is not on the CDMA evolution path) mainly because the GSM track is used by 85% of the rest of the world. I'm sure their CDMA network will be in place for many years to come tho, so don't worry about having to get a new phone anytime soon.

[Barciurek]

I'm wondering about LTE in Europe; haven't heard any plans of putting it up from Polish operators, how is it in Western Europe, anyone knows?

[Jay2TheRescue]

Well, its a pretty safe bet that current GSM carriers in Europe will eventually migrate to LTE. Vodafone has already announced that they will go LTE, and they have used their influence to get Verizon to go LTE so european Vodafone customers visiting the US can roam on Verizon.

-Jay

[spleck]

If you mean the air interface CDMA, then I think it won over TDMA (GSM's basis) due to spectral efficiency and resistance to interference. (GSM's successor, UMTS is CDMA based).

If you mean the CDMA-based standards CDMAone and CDMA2000, then globally they lost to GSM. In most areas outside the US, GSM was government mandated. In the US, CDMA was the 2G winner (split is better than 50/50 if you do the numbers) due to many larger areas of lower population (can you say Alltel?), and spectral efficiency for populated areas. However, the 3GPP upgrade path is better (LTE, even if its a longer path), and GSM has worldwide adoption so it made a strong push in later years.

Strictly speaking though, UMTS is a designed replacement for GSM, not an "upgrade".

Considering the way EV-DO was added to CDMA2000, "CDMA" has enjoyed a much longer lifespan and lower deployment costs than running "GSM".

However, since LTE is a UMTS standard (using OFDM instead of CDMA), we can label the three different systems:
CDMA - CDMAone, CDMA2000, EV-DO
GSM - GSM, GPRS, EDGE
UMTS - UMTS, HSPA, LTE

Then its obvious that the winner is UMTS.

[scotsboyuk]

Originally Posted by Barciurek

I'm wondering about LTE in Europe; haven't heard any plans of putting it up from Polish operators, how is it in Western Europe, anyone knows?

I would have thought that al European networks will eventually upgrade to LTE, all the British networks will at any rate. I think networks will be more cautious this time around in so far as they will want to make sure that there will be a return on their investment. Despite 3G having been around for 5 years or so in Europe only just over 20% of the population uses a 3G handset. The networks will no doubt want to make sure that there is a valid business case before committing significant resources.

In terms of speed LTE doesn't really open up any doors that HSPA doesn't, in the short term at least anyway.

[spleck]