Happy Birthday GSM!! 20 years ago it went commercial. As a "2G" system, it wasn't the first mobile technology, but it's the one that blew the doors open and made it available to the "average" person. 20 years later, it's still going strong, despite 3G and 4G networks being deployed since then. Actually, GSM is so deeply entrenched in the world, it will be quite some time before it's phased out completely. It's truely the "granddaddy" of mobile technology. First Commercial GSM Call Marks 20-year Milestone | PCWorld Business Center
The first GSM network in the US was in Baltimore/Washington, DC area in 1995. It was Sprint! The GSM network infrastructure was later sold to OmniPoint which became VoiceStream and later T-Mobile and Sprint decided to build a CDMA PCS network. "Later in 1995, the company began to offer wireless service under the Sprint Spectrum brand in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. This was the first commercial PCS network in the United States. Although the current Sprint PCS service is CDMA, the original Washington-area network used GSM." Bell South Mobility DCS and Pacific Bell Wireless were also GSM from the outset also founded around the mid-nineties. When Cingular was formed as a joint venture with Bell South and Southwestern Bell (SBC) BS and SBC were still running an IS-136 "TDMA" operation. AT&T didn't start to intoduce GSM til sometime around 2001 on PCS only. Cingular did a GSM overlay around 2002 by which time GSM was also available on "cellular" 850. Sprint Nextel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Isn't it crazy that the very first US GSM carrier was Sprint? I always thought it was very odd of them to completely build out a network, sell it, and start from scratch.
Interesting that Sprint got as much wireless spectrum as they did. It's probably the reason why almost all the CDMA MVNOs use Sprint as the network they use.
Yea, Sprint has more Spectrum than they know what to do with. That has always been the case with them. However, if they don't maintain their cell sites and let them rot like they have, all the spectrum in the world is meaningless if you run EVDO off of one T1 line.
Ok let's start another GSM vs CDMA battle! lol Sprint has always been the "Apple" of the wireless carriers. They always want to do things different than the rest.
Let's not and say we did anyway. As for different you need to explain. And just to further go with it, different can often be a lot better than the status quo. The US has been accused several times of doing things differently "just to be different" but a lot of the time we do things different for a really good reason. People have whined why the US uses mobile telephone frequencies of 850 and 1900 where the rest of the world uses 900 and 1800 or North Americans using called party pays vs calling party pays in most other parts of the world. There are good reasons for it. There are reasons why we in the US use 120 volt 60 Hz electrical standard as opposed to the majority if the world using 230 volt 50 Hz. There's nothing wrong in being different or getting to the same place by a different means.
Let me rephrase: About Sprint and Apple, let's replace the word "different" with the word "unique". I didn't mean it in a bad way. Just that they don't want to follow the pack, just like Apple does. They want to think for themselves and implement solutions without copying others. Sprint phones have always been the first with certain features if you go back in history (color screens, internet with graphics, multimedia messaging), and they try to be "unique" with their pricing structure as well. Remember when they had the rate plans that would bump you to the next higher rate if you went over your minutes? That's just one example. They were also the first carrier to offer national (no roaming charges while in-network) plans back in the 90s. Even with 4G they wanted to go a different (or should I say unique) route by installing a WiMax network and I guess it was because they wanted to be ahead with 4G because LTE wasn't ready at the time. They even did the most "unique" merger of all with Nextel! In your examples, there are many countries that use 120V 60Hz such as Mexico, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Rep., Japan, Bermuda (even when they are run by the British), Taiwan, Venezuela, to name a few, so even when most of the world uses 220V or 240V, that doesn't make the US look so alienated for using 120V. We are different than the rest of the world when it comes to the metric vs. the english system, or even with the temperatures (Fahrenheit vs. Celsius). But when it comes to the 850/1900Mhz frequencies, there are many countries that use them as well, Israel being one of them, as well as most of South America, the Caribbean and all of North America of course. The same thing with the NTSC TV system, versus PAL or SECAM. Usually countries that use 60Hz for electricity will follow the NTSC standard for TV and PAL when they use 50Hz. Every country has their historic reasons why they chose what they chose, like driving on the right or left side of the road, but I'm sure it gets real complicated from this point. The fact is, it is always a good thing to have someone that thinks outside the box and does things differently (or unique I should say). This is the reason many others get inspired to revolutionize industries. Remember what happened when Motorola created the RAZR? Everybody wanted to make the thinnest phones after that, and when the iPhone came out? now everyone wants to make a touchscreen-only phone with an accelerometer to rotate the screen, etc.... and the latest? now everyone is coming out with their version of the iPad: HTC Flyer, Viewsonic gTablet, HP Touchpad, Dell Streak, Samsung Galaxy, Motorola Xoom, Blackberry Playbook.....who's next? Anyway.... Happy Birthday GSM!
