Sprint-Nextel: Tri-Band Penta-Mode phones??

and this will be their first phone: A smartphone with bluetooth, touchscreen, voice recognition, IR, Memory card slots (multiple), USB, full keyboard, 2000mAh battery, docking station (in case the bluetooth sucks like the V710), PTT, 1x Data/ Broadband.. etc, etc...

and it will only cost $300

 

I have a E-105 with T-Mo and an A-660 with Sprint. That Sprint phone is already bigger than my GSM phone, does the workings of a CDMA phone take up a lot of space?
I can imagine what cramming the new IDEN applications into Sprint will do to the handsets. How big can they make it before customers complain of the bulk?
Don't forget about GSM SIMS for European roaming that they have in some handsets, even bigger and bulkier.

 

I doubt Sprint/Nextel will make the "iDEN/CDMA" handsets standard... more than likely, the only folks who will get them are existing Nextel customers who need to have faster access to Nextel's DC network than the future "gateway" between the CDMA and iDEN PTT networks will allow or who want to be able to roam more freely.

 

I'm anticipating the iDEN/CDMA phones to be the size of a microtac as it is. Throwing GSM in there would require us to bring back the bag phone.

 

Try this:
450 NMT, CDMA
800 AMPS, CDMA, TDMA, GSM, PHS, PDC, CDMA (Japan Tx and Rx reversed), iDEN
900 GSM
1,700 CDMA (Korean PCS)
1,800 GSM
1,900 GSM, CDMA, TDMA, wCDMA
2,100 wCDMA
And let's throw in GPS, WiFi, WiMAX, and BT at 2,400 MHz.

That is 8 bands (Octa-band) and 14 modes (counting each technology only once). I am certain that I forgot something.

 

That would be one of a phone.

I wonder how much something like that would cost, and how many years from now it would be available?

 

Someone will have to spend the effort to design and manufacture a chip that can do all that - certainly feasible we can pack a lot of transistors into a sq. mm of silicon these days, but it will never happen unless there is a reasonable market for such a beast.

 

I think CDMA will have the lead in the number of bands it will operate.

- 450
- 800 SMR
- 850 cellular
- 1700
- 1900 PCS
- 1900 G block

So far, GSM works in only 4 bands.

 

Multi-mode, multi-frequency handsets will be much easier once we have Software Defined Radio.

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