CDMA vs. GSM - help an immigrant

Well You can spend the day by read all discuss up there, but i can say some :

GSM is mature technology, so You don't have to worry traveling across the world, it has better coverage and international roaming feature.
You had rather much talk time in GSM since it has fixed coverage
In GSM You can easy change Your phone with other operator, by changing SIM Card

CDMA had better capacity since, one transmitter work more wide coverage and efficiently than GSM , especially in states
User were unlimited, but coverage get thinner due to high traffic
Reliable on certain weather condition, and little impacted by noise
Efficient on power, since CDMA towers had better coverage
It's soft handovers minimize dropping calls

That's all i know, but in States, You should prefer CDMA, it has better coverage and more stable, but for worldwide use, GSM still better.



Sorry, i would ask something

1. Why repeater could not be used on CDMA?
2. In my country some operator could do roaming in other area instantly, but some other needs registration, how does these difference?

Thank You

 

South eastern PA looks like it should be pretty good for both CDMA and GSM. We need a little more information from you because there are a few things that could be your problem. If your Tmobile phone is old enough it may only work on the 1900 MHz frequency, which could be limiting your coverage. It's also possible that your house could just be a bad area. What town are you in and what make and model of phone do you use?

 

I was just going to say that. I think the biggest problem is he's using TMO prepaid in Pennsylvania. TMO does not work well outside urban areas. If we had the OP's zipcode we could make a better determination on what may be better.

-Jay

 

ive heard ATT is good in PA and uses GSM and UMTS.

GSM will be good for you as your use to it and it will be most compatible for when you travel.

 

I had no problems using AT&T when visiting family in the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton area, and I drove up to Conellsville last year and had no problems there either.

-Jay

 

Both AT&T and Tmobile show that area as being pretty thin for coverage, so I guess I do have to give them credit for being honest. Verizon's web site shows a lot of coverage in that area, but if the terrain is bad it might just be a very bad area for everyone. I would try a CDMA phone if I were you, but do you need a phone that you can take to Poland too? If so there are only a few that will also GSM overseas.

 

Best thing to do is ask your friends, neighbors and anyone else living in your area who the preferred operator is in your area. They would have the best feedback to give you. The technology itsself isn't too important. What is important is who spent more time, money and energy to build the better network where you live.

Don't beleive coverage maps posted on operators web sites. They give a rough idea of the coverage, but often they are outdated, plus they give no indication of the quality of the network. They just say "yes, we roughly have some type of coverage in this area".

I personally prefer GSM since I'm also in Europe and have worked on GSM networks since 1998 I know them quite well. But if I lived in a part of the US that had better CDMA coverage I would probably take that, and keep my GSM phone in the closet and use it when I travel abroad.

PS-As someone mentioned, T-Mobile has only the 1900 band in the US and focuses on city areas. Probably not the best carrier to have in a rural area. Also, make sure your phone has 850/1900 bands. You'll need both of them.

 

Actually, AT&T shows "best" coverage along most of steelville road, except the far west end. The Nokia 5300 is a tri-band phone. Did you get the European version that does not have 850 Mhz, or the North American version, which does? Do others with AT&T phones not get service at your house?

Just want to be sure what method you used to determine that there was no AT&T signal.

 

@Barciurek

3G coverage doesn't seem very widespread in Poland. Has it improved since that map?

 

id assume its bc 90% of people live in citys and towns where you see 3G on that map.

the US is one of the few countrys where people live out in the suburbs and the country away from the city, hence why we use more cars than any country.

 

That's probaly the main reason. Also consider 3G is currently only on 2100Mhz in Europe, and the USA has 3G on 850Mhz, which gives roughly double the coverage area.

 

After looking at a map of 3G coverage I can see that Poland actually has better 3G coverage than most other East European countries. I wonder if the economic differences between Eastern and Western Europe can explain that? Having said that, it appears from the map that France has relatively little 3G coverage when compared with the UK, Italy or Germany.

I'm not sure the point about the frequency used in valid given that the areas to be covered are relatively much smaller, and that previous European network policy appears to have been to provide blanket coverage e.g. 2G coverage even when using a single frequency band such as 1800 MHz.

 

Usually the licence requirements state something like (for example) "95% population coverage after 3 years" of aquiring the license. For dual-band (900/1800) operators, I don't think it usually matters which band they use to meet the requirements. The UK has good 1800 coverage because there are a couple of 1800 only operators, so they must meet the license requirements with only that band (plus it's in their interest to build good 1800 nets to avoid roaming). But I'd be suprised if dual-band operators had good, contiguous 1800 networks. Usually 1800 is just used in cities for extra capacity.

Regarding the weak 2100 coverage: yea, it could also be less requirements tied to the 3G licences. Maybe they only require (for example): 98% pop coverage for voice and GPRS, but only 90% pop coverage for +1Mbps service". Then the 3G operators could only focus 3G in cities (where the $$ is anyway) and leave their existing GSM/GPRS/EDGE nets to cover the rural areas.