[Spliff]

These are the phones I can get with my cellular company.

Sucky cellphones I can get

Why are GSM cellphones so much better than CDMA phones? CDMA is the larger network in North America and it's technology is supposed to be superior to GSM, yet the phones are lame and the selection is limited.

I'm considering switching to a GSM carrier, but in Canada, CDMA has better coverage in rural/remote areas and better voice quality.

[His Dudeness]

You're not alone. Down South here, I'm with Sprint PCS. From what I've seen, they have the WORST selection of the most PATHETIC phones on the market. I think they only thing driving the cell phone market is this pathetic marketing scheme behind the camera phone/cell phone combo. That's sad.

I, too, am considering switching to a GSM service provider, such as T-Mobile when my Sprint account is up. Plus, GSM is widely used in Europe. And with me being in the Navy, I could call home on my GSM phone. I can't call home with my Sprint phone.

So far, Sony Ericsson has the best phones on the market. I want that P-900.

[mbryda]

Define suck. I have a Motorola T720 on Verizon and it's a great PHONE. Good battery life, great reception, and a tank.

I've had Nokias in the past and they were POS phones. And the new ones look hideous and seem to be crap.

I've also had LG phones and they have been excellent as well.

Sure, they may not have the glitz of the GSM phones, but most of them suck so bad as phones it's not funny. I need a phone that's first a phone and the rest of the crap is a nonissue.

[madmacgames]

yeah I know what you mean. But if you look at it from a phone makers standpoint, most of the companies making the cool phones are global companies. And globally speaking, GSM is how to go. CDMA may be the leader in North America, but globally it is not.

Sony Ericson was going to get into CDMA for Noth America, and did make one phone for Sprint but some things happened (Sprint announced they would be pulling the SMS feature out of the phone, Sony announced they would be stopping R&D for CDMA phones, Sprint stopped production of the phone). There was only one run of 10,000 units sold. It's a shame as SE makes some nice phones.

Speaking of Sprint, I was looking at their phones online yesterday and man, their selection has really been thinned out. They really do not have very many phones to choose from anymore.

[madmacgames]

Originally posted by mbryda:
Sure, they may not have the glitz of the GSM phones, but most of them suck so bad as phones it's not funny. I need a phone that's first a phone and the rest of the crap is a nonissue.

one area where GSM phones have a leg up is bluetooth. You can goto any GSM proivders phone list and find at least 4 or 5 bluetooth enabled phones. Try to find one with a CDMA provider, and you won't. There was the SE T608 with Sprint but only 10,000 were produced, it was only sold via tele-sales, and sold out back in March. You still can get one on eBay for a pretty penny or an unlocked one for a prettier penny if you want to use it with Verizon.

I think there is one other CDMA bluetooth phone in the works (from motorola?), but who knows when it will be available (2005?) and if it will even be mass produced at all.

But I guess with CDMA and bluetooth, one of the concerns is people being able to very easily use it as a modem and get 120K/s internet for low cost ($15/month with Sprint or $10/month if you got it when it 1st came out). The was one of Sprint's concerns I guess. GSM providers don't really have that concern as much because the connection is only 1/3 the speed.

[TimmyDee51]

A big part of it is the global dominance of GSM. People in the US don't have a demand for features like people in Europe or Japan do. I can still remember what my friend said when he was looking at cell phones. "I just want a phone that will let me play Snake." (I launched into a whole tirade on how people like him were the downfall of innovation and quality.) Guess what? He didn't get a phone that could play Snake -- just a crappy Motorola phone for Verizon.

While I'm on the subject, let me also rant about the CDMA standard. I think it sucks. Sure it allows towers to cover more square miles, but the call quality is terrible. I can tell which of my friends have CDMA services and which have GSM service. GSM is clear as a bell while CDMA is muddled and peaky (if someone has a higher voice, it sounds very piercing over a CDMA phone). Anyways, that's just my 2�. I just wish the old US of A would get its act together and just go with a global standard for once. Hopefully that's what will win out in the end.

[CambAngst]

For each and every phone model that SprintPCS decides to support, someone has to spend at least an hour or two writing a new script for their doofus first tier phone techs to read. ("Is your phone turned on?", "Do you have a signal?", "Have you tried reseting?")

[tooki]

Originally posted by TimmyDee51:
While I'm on the subject, let me also rant about the CDMA standard. I think it sucks. Sure it allows towers to cover more square miles, but the call quality is terrible. I can tell which of my friends have CDMA services and which have GSM service. GSM is clear as a bell while CDMA is muddled and peaky (if someone has a higher voice, it sounds very piercing over a CDMA phone).

Maybe your friends all have lousy handsets, cuz out here, CDMA handily beats GSM in voice quality.

tooki

[madmacgames]

Originally posted by TimmyDee51:
While I'm on the subject, let me also rant about the CDMA standard. I think it sucks. Sure it allows towers to cover more square miles, but the call quality is terrible. I can tell which of my friends have CDMA services and which have GSM service. GSM is clear as a bell while CDMA is muddled and peaky (if someone has a higher voice, it sounds very piercing over a CDMA phone). Anyways, that's just my 2�. I just wish the old US of A would get its act together and just go with a global standard for once. Hopefully that's what will win out in the end.

I think that call quality has more to do with the quality of the phone. I have heard CDMA phones that do sound quite crappy, but also have heard ones that it is very difficult to distinguish from a land line. I have also heard GSM phones that sound really crappy and ones that do not.

Also many seem to prefer CDMA because its wireless net access it approx 3x faster than what GSM is able to do.

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by mbryda:
Define suck. I have a Motorola T720 on Verizon and it's a great PHONE. Good battery life, great reception, and a tank.

you are probably one of the few people to call the t720 a great phone.



I am about the switch from verizon (CDMA) to Cingular(GSM) because of the phone selection. I can't really complain about verizon too badly because I have had pretty good service but when it comes to wireless internet and phones, verizon just sucks. It is getting better though. Within the next months verizon should be releasing the audiovox 9900, the lg vx7000 and the moto v710 which are all great phones. Then you have the moto v810, the kyocera koi, and some other phones.

The V710 is probably one of the best clamshell phones outside of whats only available in japan, including GSM phones. 1.2 megapixel camera, bluetooth, big screen, video, memory card slot, speakerphone, etc. The reason I wont get it from verizon is I know they are going to limit the bluetooth so you can't take picture off and put pics on or transfer mp3s and things like that. It also doesn't help that unlimited internet is 80 bucks with verizon while its only 15 with sprint, and 20 with cingular. I would get sprint with a t608 but the coverage just isn't that good and i don't think the free and clear plan works with the T608 because i don't think it has analog.

I Think CDMA phones can only get better with the new all in one chips that qualcomm has developed for CDMA phones.

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by madmacgames:
Also many seem to prefer CDMA because its wireless net access it approx 3x faster than what GSM is able to do.

GSM providers are launching EDGE support which should bring speed from 40 kbps to 100�120kbps.

[madmacgames]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
I would get sprint with a t608 but the coverage just isn't that good and i don't think the free and clear plan works with the T608 because i don't think it has analog.

I'm not exactly sure where you are located, but I thought about switching to Cingular from Sprint but there is no GSM converage outside of metropolitan areas where I am. nashville would have coverage, but sometimes I travel north. An hour south of Chicago and there is none to very little GSM. Through Pennsylvania, you can only get GSM around Pittsburgh or to the eastern side of the state. In between in all the rural areas, there is no GSM, but as long as you are within a reasonable distance to an interstate, you can pick up Sprint and then Verizon is all over the place out here if you have the thing that lets you roam on other CDMA networks without roaming charges (on a dual band phone).

So I ordered a T608 from eBay. I'm not sure if it has analog or not, but even though where I sometimes visit out here is very rural, it is still close enough to an interstate to pick up Sprint. Anyone that comes out here and has AT&T (GSM) cannot get any reception anywhere out here except maybe some places on the interstate, but forget it once you get off.

And I can get Sprint an hour outside of Chicago, where I sometimes go. As I said I know people who have GSM providers and get nothing when they go there.

It just makes sense to me that if you are within the US/Canada and are going to be travelling/living anwhere within the US/Canada, outside of major metropolitan areas, CDMA is the way to go, unless you like not being able to pickup any signal. If you are going to be living/traveling outside of the US/Canada alot, GSM seems a better choice for that.

[Mike656]

Originally posted by tooki:
Maybe your friends all have lousy handsets, cuz out here, CDMA handily beats GSM in voice quality.

tooki

When I had Verizon I found that incoming sound quality was excellent from everyone I talked to (other CDMA users, landlines, GSM, TDMA IS-136), but for some reason outgoing sound to GSM or TDMA handsets sounded horrible (i got plently of comments). Now with T-Mobile I experience the same thing with CDMA based phones, no matter the model, they just sound plain awful. My guess is the EFR (enhanced full rate) codec for GSM and EVRC (enhanced variable rate codec) for CDMA don't get along very well .

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by madmacgames:
I'm not exactly sure where you are located, but I thought about switching to Cingular from Sprint but there is no GSM converage outside of metropolitan areas where I am. nashville would have coverage, but sometimes I travel north. An hour south of Chicago and there is none to very little GSM. Through Pennsylvania, you can only get GSM around Pittsburgh or to the eastern side of the state. In between in all the rural areas, there is no GSM, but as long as you are within a reasonable distance to an interstate, you can pick up Sprint and then Verizon is all over the place out here if you have the thing that lets you roam on other CDMA networks without roaming charges (on a dual band phone).

So I ordered a T608 from eBay. I'm not sure if it has analog or not, but even though where I sometimes visit out here is very rural, it is still close enough to an interstate to pick up Sprint. Anyone that comes out here and has AT&T (GSM) cannot get any reception anywhere out here except maybe some places on the interstate, but forget it once you get off.

And I can get Sprint an hour outside of Chicago, where I sometimes go. As I said I know people who have GSM providers and get nothing when they go there.

It just makes sense to me that if you are within the US/Canada and are going to be travelling/living anwhere within the US/Canada, outside of major metropolitan areas, CDMA is the way to go, unless you like not being able to pickup any signal. If you are going to be living/traveling outside of the US/Canada alot, GSM seems a better choice for that.

Cingular GSM is supposedly pretty decent in MA. I can't say the same for Sprint as I had Sprint before I had verizon.

I still have to try the 14 day trial but the coverage seems to good according to friends.

850 Minutes/Free nights and weekends/unlimited mobile to mobile/rollover/free roaming on ATT in many areas in MA/and I hear 7pm nights will become standard on 60 dollar plans and up come june 1st.

Thats for 60 dollars, then add another line for 10 bucks, and the media works package for 20 that will give me 1500 text message/200 multimedia messages/unlimited internet.

Not to mention a sweet phone like a nokia 6230 with fm radio/bluetooth/aac and mp3 player/camera/video/memory slot/EDGE support or a phone like the SE 637.

Once this buyout of ATT is complete combined with the rate at which cingular is adding new coverage, verizon is going to have some great competition.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
you are probably one of the few people to call the t720 a great phone.

I know and I'll never understand why people rag on it. I've had the same phone since Nov, '02 and I beat my phones up. Drop, bang, and generally abuse them. Yet this thing still gets 2 days battery life, has a good readable display and great reception.

It's just a joy to use and hasn't given me one minute's worth of problems.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by madmacgames:
I think that call quality has more to do with the quality of the phone. I have heard CDMA phones that do sound quite crappy, but also have heard ones that it is very difficult to distinguish from a land line. I have also heard GSM phones that sound really crappy and ones that do not.

That's the truth. Motorola and LG seem to have the best audio quality. Samsung and Kyocera play a close second, with Audiovox bringing up the rear, very rear.

Also, the flip phones have the best audio (the flip places the microphone closer to your mouth and sheilds background noise, and the candybar ones have the worst audio.

[TimmyDee51]

Originally posted by Mike656:
When I had Verizon I found that incoming sound quality was excellent from everyone I talked to (other CDMA users, landlines, GSM, TDMA IS-136), but for some reason outgoing sound to GSM or TDMA handsets sounded horrible (i got plently of comments). Now with T-Mobile I experience the same thing with CDMA based phones, no matter the model, they just sound plain awful. My guess is the EFR (enhanced full rate) codec for GSM and EVRC (enhanced variable rate codec) for CDMA don't get along very well .

That could be the case. I hadn't thought of that. The main reason I always considered was that CDMA allowed a large number of calls per frequency range whereas GSM allows for a somewhat more fixed limit. Come 9:00 PM, everyone hops on their cell phone and CDMA can get pretty crowded. Now, I'm not sure if this is correct, but that's how it was explained to me once. I guess the real thing I go on is the fact that my friends with Verizon and Sprint sound like crap when I'm talking to them (some have nice handsets, others do not). My T-Mobile friends sound fine.

[Eug Wanker]

In Canada, my GSM provider Fido has just gotten a buyout offer ($1.1 billion) from one of the CDMA providers (Telus).

Very strange development cuz they're doing it partially to get Fido's customer base, and all info points to a scenario which would have Telus simply dismantling Fido's GSM network and moving everyone to CDMA. However, as you said, CDMA phones suck.

If Telus gets Fido and shuts down Fido's GSM network, I'm probably just going to be moving to Rogers (which is also GSM).

[Link]

Originally posted by mbryda:
Define suck. I have a Motorola T720 on Verizon and it's a great PHONE. Good battery life, great reception, and a tank.

I've had Nokias in the past and they were POS phones. And the new ones look hideous and seem to be crap.

I've also had LG phones and they have been excellent as well.

Sure, they may not have the glitz of the GSM phones, but most of them suck so bad as phones it's not funny. I need a phone that's first a phone and the rest of the crap is a nonissue.

The T720 is also (primarily) a GSM phone. There's a CDMA version with that BIG antenna...

It's also known for crappier reception and shorter battery life. What this dude's trying to say is that the phones, even if full featured, come later, or have fewer features

BTW I like my T720i first phone I've ever PAST it's contract (mostly because every other time I wanted to get rid of the phone like the plague == those cheap nokias and whatnot)

[tooki]

Originally posted by mbryda:
I know and I'll never understand why people rag on it. I've had the same phone since Nov, '02 and I beat my phones up. Drop, bang, and generally abuse them. Yet this thing still gets 2 days battery life, has a good readable display and great reception. [/B]

You say "2 days battery life" as if that were a good thing. Good GSM phones frequently get 3 times that.

tooki

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by Link:
The T720 is also (primarily) a GSM phone. There's a CDMA version with that BIG antenna...

Verizon is annoying about antennas. Supposedly they have somewhat of an unwritten rule that they wont put out a phone that has an internal antenna. So alot of phones have the stub or the one that enlarges.

[Link]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
Verizon is annoying about antennas. Supposedly they have somewhat of an unwritten rule that they wont put out a phone that has an internal antenna. So alot of phones have the stub or the one that enlarges.

hahahahahahaah... yeah but verizon's phones are CDMA, like sprint's if IIRC, meaning the antenna is part of the phone's 'requirements'?

Not sure about that. I don't like phones with internal antennas much beeeeecause they like to put them right near where you put the phone to your head (nokia has been known to do this all the time) -- which defeats the point of making cellphones safer in the first place.

As for the 2 day battery life thing.. I told ya I was right The CDMA version of the phone gets much crappier reception (I've gotten a week without recharging out of mine.. might be because I don't talk on it much)

Ironically, the CDMA plates on the T720 are silver by default, whereas the GSM ones are charcoal.. *shrug* I thought it was pretty amusing when I found all the staff at my 'homeschool' have the exact same phone I have (same carrier too except they have silver and not charcoal.. odd!!)

[mbryda]

Originally posted by Link:
The T720 is also (primarily) a GSM phone. There's a CDMA version with that BIG antenna...

It's also known for crappier reception and shorter battery life. What this dude's trying to say is that the phones, even if full featured, come later, or have fewer features

BTW I like my T720i first phone I've ever PAST it's contract (mostly because every other time I wanted to get rid of the phone like the plague == those cheap nokias and whatnot)

That's the one I have - T720 for Verizon CDMA. Reception has not been an issue for me in the hills where I live. It's about on par with my old LG-TM510 and the Kyocera Phantom I carry for work (which, the Phantom is supposed to be one of Verizon's best reception phones).

I'm the same way with phones. I would have kept my TM-510, but wanted color, so the T720 it was. Even let the wife use the 510 for about 6 mo and she liked it. But wanted color and camera phone so upgraded to the VX6000 camera phone and she loves it.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by tooki:
You say "2 days battery life" as if that were a good thing. Good GSM phones frequently get 3 times that.

Doesn't bother me. Recharge every other nite. I do miss the 14+ day battery I had on my Nokia 6190, but that was the only good thing about that phone.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
Verizon is annoying about antennas. Supposedly they have somewhat of an unwritten rule that they wont put out a phone that has an internal antenna. So alot of phones have the stub or the one that enlarges.

For those that care about reception, external is king. Actually, I have the Kyocera phantom that I carry for work with a fixed antenna and hate it when I get in a low reception area. With my T720 I would just pull up the antenna and usually could keep a good connection. With the Phantom it's just "hope" until you move out of that location.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by Link:
As for the 2 day battery life thing.. I told ya I was right The CDMA version of the phone gets much crappier reception (I've gotten a week without recharging out of mine.. might be because I don't talk on it much)

Recpetion or battery life? Reception is the phone's ability to lock on to a signal and keep good signal for the length of the call. It is somewhat related to battery life (if you spend a lot of time in No Service areas, your battery will be toast). But battery life is just the length of time before recharge.

[strokemouth]

I'm dying to get rid of my T720 (through Verizon also). The reception is great and I can get a good signal from almost anywhere, but the battery life is horrible. My first battery (the original) would last me about 10 hours tops on standby. I now have the "long life" battery and that will last me *maybe* 20 hours. Much less if I decide to *gasp* TALK ON IT!

I don't really have many options either. I have to do one of the following:

1. Suck it up until February when I can get a new phone
2. Buy a new phone at retail price and sign up for the next higher plan.
3. Cancel with Verizon and pay the fee to break the contract and go somewhere else.

I don't want to do either of the latter choices as I don't feel like dropping a ton of money just to have good battery life and I don't want to cancel with Verizon because their customer support has been amazing.

[baeksoo]

Still, Korea and Japan (two countries that arguably have the most advanced mobile phones in the world) are mostly on some kind of CDMA.

Korean and Japanese cell phones seem much more technologically advanced as far as features go, than anything I've seen coming from Europe or other GSM dominated regions of the world. They had color phones that could send live video streams when the rest of the world was still using basic featureless monochrome phones.

Bluetooth does seem to be pretty rare over there, although I don't know how the most recent models are.

Granted here in the US, the GSM providers seem to have better phones than the CDMA providers. Especially Verizon - they have a great network - the best in my area as far as I've tested, but their selection of phones is....bleh.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by baeksoo:
Still, Korea and Japan (two countries that arguably have the most advanced mobile phones in the world) are mostly on some kind of CDMA.

Their technology is to North American CDMA what OS X is to OS 9. It's not even in the same league.

Ironically, if you want to use a phone in Japan or Korea with your own phone number, you just need to take your GSM smart card and plug it in a rented phone there.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by strokemouth:
I'm dying to get rid of my T720 (through Verizon also). The reception is great and I can get a good signal from almost anywhere, but the battery life is horrible. My first battery (the original) would last me about 10 hours tops on standby. I now have the "long life" battery and that will last me *maybe* 20 hours. Much less if I decide to *gasp* TALK ON IT!

Do you have the warranty or insurance? If so, file a claim. Sounds like you have a bum something (battery, charger, phone), as I have the T720, and after a year and a half on the original battery, I still get 2 days of standby with moderate use.

Also, you may want to check eBay and see if you can get a super high capacity battery for the T720. They used to have them and the milliamps (capacity) was much higher than stock.

[C.J. Moof]

My friend's ATT GSM phone is a Motorola flip similar to my VZW phone, but with all the cool features- color, bluetooth, camera, useable datebook, ect. Yesterday we were in the car driving through the near north side of Madison (not exactly the unpopulated rural farmlands), and his phone was in "emergency only" mode for a while. In our office, he can get coverage if he holds it in exactly the right way. Mine always gets coverage, though it sometimes roams on USCC. That's OK with me- my phone's job #1 is to make and receive phone calls, and it does it better than what I've seen GSM do around here. If he takes that phone 10 miles out of the urban area around here, he's got a paperweight.

While I want the whiz-bang features he has, I won't give up the CDMA/analog coverage I get on my phone. 3 or 4 times a year we drive through Michigan's U.P. to visit family, where a GSM phone is useless. Even my tri-mode phone is occasionally w/o service up there, so we also carry my wife's TDMA/analog phone for plan B.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by C.J. Moof:
While I want the whiz-bang features he has, I won't give up the CDMA/analog coverage I get on my phone. 3 or 4 times a year we drive through Michigan's U.P. to visit family, where a GSM phone is useless. Even my tri-mode phone is occasionally w/o service up there, so we also carry my wife's TDMA/analog phone for plan B.

I get the best of both worlds, but it takes two phones too (but only one account). I keep an old dual mode GSM/analogue phone in the glove compartment. When I'm in the middle of nowhere I can just take the SIM card out of my main whiz-bang featured GSM phone and stick it into my 5 year-old dual mode phone for analogue service (on the same phone number and account).

I've only ever used the analogue a couple of times in the last few years, when I've gone off the main highway. (The highways outside the city are all covered by GSM.)

I think that's one of the best features of GSM - the convenience of the SIM card.

[mbryda]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
Ironically, if you want to use a phone in Japan or Korea with your own phone number, you just need to take your GSM smart card and plug it in a rented phone there.

IIRC, with Verizon, you can just call them and turn on Korea roaming and take your US CDMA Phone to Korea and use it (Or is it Japan, I forget). You won't get the cool features, but it will work for calls.

[C.J. Moof]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
I get the best of both worlds, but it takes two phones too (but only one account). I keep an old dual mode GSM/analogue phone in the glove compartment. When I'm in the middle of nowhere I can just take the SIM card out of my main whiz-bang featured GSM phone and stick it into my 5 year-old dual mode phone for analogue service (on the same phone number and account).

I've only ever used the analogue a couple of times in the last few years, when I've gone off the main highway. (The highways outside the city are all covered by GSM.)

I think that's one of the best features of GSM - the convenience of the SIM card.

OK, that's cool. I didn't know there were any GSM/analog phones available.

You do this in the States? What kind of phone is the old dual mode?

That's a great thing for traveling through the sticks, but where I spend most of my time, I still see more holes and limitations to GSM than I'm willing to deal with. Which is too bad, because I've had calls with my friend's GSM where he's on the interstate doing 70MPH, and it sounds like a landline. His voice quality beats my CDMA by quite a bit.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by mbryda:
IIRC, with Verizon, you can just call them and turn on Korea roaming and take your US CDMA Phone to Korea and use it (Or is it Japan, I forget). You won't get the cool features, but it will work for calls.

Yes I've heard there is some compatible CDMA roaming. I don't know how good the coverage is though.

Originally posted by C.J. Moof:
OK, that's cool. I didn't know there were any GSM/analog phones available.

You do this in the States? What kind of phone is the old dual mode?

That's a great thing for traveling through the sticks, but where I spend most of my time, I still see more holes and limitations to GSM than I'm willing to deal with. Which is too bad, because I've had calls with my friend's GSM where he's on the interstate doing 70MPH, and it sounds like a landline. His voice quality beats my CDMA by quite a bit.

Like I said, it's a pretty old phone. I don't know how many GSM phones these days will support analogue. My guess is they're uncommon.

Mine is a Nokia 6190. I'm in Toronto by the way, so the highway coverage with GSM nearby is pretty good. I hear the GSM coverage in the boonies in much of the US is much worse though. For big cities though as expected I haven't had a problem with GSM in the States. (eg. Seattle, Boston, etc.)

[TheMosco]

its called GAIT. It allows you to use GSM/TDMA/Analog all on one phone. THe phones suck. I mean they really really suck, and they only offer 2 of them. Coverage is good although one of the downsides is that you can't handoff from a GSM signal to a TDMA signal while making a call. I am pretty sure that if you have a Gait plan, you can't get extras like internet and stuff like that which also kinda sucks because you are supposed to take the sim out and put it in a GSM only phone.

Re: Korean Phones

As long as you have a CDMA phone with 850 band, korean coverage should be great. You can use korean phones here in the states but you will lose features like MMS, internet, and things like that but the phone itself should work as long as verizon is 850 in your area.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
In Canada, my GSM provider Fido has just gotten a buyout offer ($1.1 billion) from one of the CDMA providers (Telus)...

Good news, Microcell is recommending that it's shareholders not accept Telus' offer.

[mbryda]

From the horse's mouth (Verizon):
" You can use your tri-mode Verizon Wireless phone in:

Canada, Mexico, (Region 1 - Tijuana, Region 4 -Monterray, Region 5 - Guadalajara, Region 6 - Leon, Region 7 - Vera Cruz and Puebla, Region 8 - Cancun and Cozumel, Region 9 - Mexico City), Puerto Rico, South Korea"

I think the rates are around $1.99/min, though. And, from my experience trying to use my cell in Mexico, you need to activate with the local cellco, and most times they don't speak English.

[Mike656]

Originally posted by TimmyDee51:
That could be the case. I hadn't thought of that. The main reason I always considered was that CDMA allowed a large number of calls per frequency range whereas GSM allows for a somewhat more fixed limit. Come 9:00 PM, everyone hops on their cell phone and CDMA can get pretty crowded. Now, I'm not sure if this is correct, but that's how it was explained to me once. I guess the real thing I go on is the fact that my friends with Verizon and Sprint sound like crap when I'm talking to them (some have nice handsets, others do not). My T-Mobile friends sound fine.

CDMA has more network capacity than GSM but it comes at a disadvantage, CDMA users share a 1.25 MHz wide carrier (one each for Tx and Rx) and if not enough carriers are deployed, they can become crowded and call quality is diminished. GSM on the other hand has a fixed network limit in a given area, but the call quality will not vary on load since you will be using a dedicated set of bandwidth just for you and the up to 6 others on your channel (each 200 KHz channel supports 7 users and 1 control channel divided using time based technology).

Also when you are on a CDMA network in a low signal high load situation, you might experience the shrinking coverage problem, which is where the noise floor (or network load) is so high that users on the fringe of coverage lose some or all signal where they normally are fine, because their phones are at the power limit (imagine a dining room thats becoming busy, people have to start talking louder and louder to be understood, but one can only talk so loud).

Other capacity problems, such as lack of digital bandwidth from the cell sites to the switch, or lack of POTS capacity to the telephone network are usually the capacity culprits, long before lack of network capacity, on both CDMA and GSM.

For more indepth info I suggest this site:

http://www.arcx.com/sites/

Or check out HowardFourms at (i have the same member name there as here):

http://www.howardfourms.com

[Link]

I've been up and down with the GSM/CDMA/TDMA thing and to be fairly honest, out here in the bay I've had better (MUCH better) coverage with the GSM service than I ever had with the CDMA stuff... OTOH, TDMA was a funny joke Aw yes the days of hearing your echo stutter over the headset..

[Eug Wanker]

When ClearNET (now Telus, using CDMA) rolled out here in Toronto, coverage was MUCH worse downtown than with Fido (GSM). However, the tower density was lower with ClearNET, and they may have been having teething issues in their overall network implementation too when they started.

Fido on the other hand, while it had excellent coverage in the areas covered, less total area was covered than other carriers.

ie. In downtown Toronto the coverage on Fido GSM was great, and was superior to some other carriers. OTOH, outside the GTA, Fido had no coverage at all.

Basically all I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure we can blame CDMA or GSM per se in terms of the coverage and quality of the coverage. Much of it has to do with the implementation by the carrier of course.

[madmacgames]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
I would get sprint with a t608 but the coverage just isn't that good and i don't think the free and clear plan works with the T608 because i don't think it has analog.

This is just for future reference, I got my SE T608 today and it is a Dual Band/Tri-mode phone (the Sprint standard)... so you can roam on analog networks if you wish.

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by madmacgames:
This is just for future reference, I got my SE T608 today and it is a Dual Band/Tri-mode phone (the Sprint standard)... so you can roam on analog networks if you wish.

yeah, i looked it up afterward. The only bad thing about analog roaming if you loose all those digital features and most free and clear roaming here is analog i think.

[tooki]

Originally posted by madmacgames:
This is just for future reference, I got my SE T608 today and it is a Dual Band/Tri-mode phone (the Sprint standard)... so you can roam on analog networks if you wish.

Is that so? Because SE's own website lists the T608 as being CDMA 800/1900 only.

SE's T608 page

tooki

[Josh Reid]

All I know is that AT&Ts GSM in NYC blows major chunks. Their new commercials are all about "How many bars do you have?" of signal bars or whatever...well with their GSM, that doesn't matter!

Let me explain: With digital, I knew that if I had 2 signal bars, my reception would be bad, but that with a full 8 bars, I was good. With their GSM, I can have 7/8 bars and still have horrible reception. What good is signal strength if it doesn't determine your call quality?

Also, it used to be with digital if you'd get in an elevator that killed signal, within 10-20 seconds of getting off the elevator, you would re-gain your signal. With my Nokia 7210, I literally have to turn the phone off and back on (no easy thing to do with this Nokia). If I don't do that, it will remain signal-less for a good 10 minutes even though I'm in a good signal area....

Such a freakin' mess...

Josh

[madmacgames]

Originally posted by tooki:
Is that so? Because SE's own website lists the T608 as being CDMA 800/1900 only.

SE's T608 page

tooki

I guess I wouldn't know because I only, ah gee, own one.

Sprint changed some things in the phone that SE originally developed for them. Go download Sprint's PDF manual for the phone and right on the front it says "Dual Band/Tri-mode Phone." Inside the phone settings, is Roaming and then 3 options: (1) Automatic (2) Sprint (3) Analog.

[madmacgames]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
yeah, i looked it up afterward. The only bad thing about analog roaming if you loose all those digital features and most free and clear roaming here is analog i think.

yeah that is true. Plus with Sprint, I believe certain features, like Vision, are only available while on the SprintPCS network.

[Eug Wanker]

Let me explain: With digital, I knew that if I had 2 signal bars, my reception would be bad, but that with a full 8 bars, I was good. With their GSM, I can have 7/8 bars and still have horrible reception. What good is signal strength if it doesn't determine your call quality?

Well, that sucks.

With Fido GSM here and my SE T610, if I have 0 bars, the connection quality is terrible (obviously). If I have 1 bar (ie. inside a building with cement walls) I get good sound quality, but once in a while I will lose the signal or the sound will cut out. With 2 bars or above (out of 5) it's good quality and the signal is stable.

IOW, as long as I have 2 bars it's great. Fortunately, the places I spend my time almost always give me at least 2 bars.