8 out of 10 worldwide customers choose GSM

I had completely forgotten about TMO's ties to DT.

 

Actually they can roam with any GSM carrier that they have an agreement with. Orange just cut a deal with Cingular. Oh and by the way UMTS/WCDMA is a voice and data network so when they are lanched large scale here in the U.S. it will be providing both:browani:

 

Oh geez! Verizon and Sprint's international roaming revenue from overseas tourists is meaningless compared to that of GSM carriers. The great majority of tourists that come to the US are from Europe. Why or how would they get a CDMA phone to use it in the US and roam on Sprint or Verizon? The only few people that can come here and roam on CDMA carriers are Canadians and some few others from Latin America and Asia. Other than that, everything else is roaming revenue for GSM carriers like Cingular and T-Mobile.

 

They will roam preferrably on whichever carrier is higher on their SIM network list. Guess which carrier the customers from T-Mobile UK will be roaming on when they come to the US. I'm sure they won't put Cingular higher than T-Mobile USA in their SIM network list.

 

Yeah, but if they stray away from the beaten path they're going to loose the TMO signal. That's what I had tried to say earlier.

-Jay

 

Cingular doesn't appear to break out roaming revenue, but for TM it is over $100-150 M per quarter. That would be all roaming revenue, not just from international users.

 

The real big picture is..if you take a poll of the first 100 people you see using a wireless phone and ask them if they are using a cdma or gsm phone I doubt 10% of them could tell you.

Most would say Motorola or Verizon or whomever their carrier is....

As for international roaming in the us, Vodaphone does have the same selection of international voice and data phones (GSM/CDMA) phones and aircards as Verizon, and are pushing those on business travelers...however your average tourist isn't going to buy a phone like that.

 

If Vodaphone had a majority stake in Verizon wireless I would guarantee that VZW would be converted to GSM. 100% of Vodaphone's networks overseas is based on the GSM standard.

 

My exact reasons for the decline of CDMA. The revenue that is generated from global roaming fees will be to much for CDMA operators to ignore. I think this was one of the main reasons for AT&T adopting GSM. I can see verizon being the one to convert 1st - lol. They are sleeping with one of the largest GSM operators in the world. Vodaphones network around the globe looks pretty good if you check coverage maps. I can only speak for a few european ****ries and the VOD network is awesome.

 

Understandable. Probably because T-Mo (and its predecessors Aerial/Omnipoint/etc.) is much older in the GSM business so they have established roaming agreements years ago before Cingular was even thinking of going GSM. Those agreements are normally multi-year agreements and Cingular only started going GSM 2 or 3 years ago.

 

Bobo;

That's not completely correct Cingular's old PacBell & BellSouth Mobility DCS have been GSM since 1995-96. So some of the roaming agreements were in effect since the late 90's

 

Yes, I realize that, but the reason I didn't mention it is because that was a small percentage of what Cingular was. Most of Cingular was TDMA until the transition started in 2002. So in the minds of consumers and businesses if you wanted GSM, you had to go with Voicestream at the time which had a more established GSM presence already, altough they started out as T-Mobile in the west coast.