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This also might reveal why Verizon's continued support of the CDMA island effectively exempts it from having to compete with carrier-unlocked phones. It's frus
by slapshot 17y ago
This also might reveal why Verizon's continued support of the CDMA island effectively exempts it from having to compete with carrier-unlocked phones.
It's frustrating as a consumer that Verizon is incompatible with the massive hordes of unlocked GSM phones, but it might be a business advantage in the short-term for Verizon. In the long term, people who want phones like Nexus One will just switch carriers.
- catch23 17y agoaccording to google.com/phone verizon support is coming in spring 2010. I wonder how they're planning to support that... does the Nexus One also have CDMA built in?
- mbreese 17y agoThere will be a completely different model with a different radio. There are chips that do CDMA and GSM, but those are usually focused on CDMA domestically and GSM abroad. I don't know if those chip support T-Mobile's somewhat non-standard frequency ranges.
- madh 17y agoMost likely there will be a separate phone for CDMA. Keeping costs down is important, especially since I believe that, at the same price point, the average consumer will have a hard time choosing a product over the iPhone. Qualcomm's GOBI platform seems to support basically everything but is currently only available as a miniPCI card: http://www.gobianywhere.com/files/gobi2000_overview.pdf http://www.gobianywhere.com/files/gobi2000_overview.pdf <speculation>Maybe Apple's tablet will have one of these.</speculation>
- jacquesm 17y agoIn the long run google will probably be competing on something other than price, I'd expect them to roll out a whole pile of android specific service improvements.
- pyre 17y agoWhy aren't there chips that support T-Mobile's non-standard frequency ranges in addition to the standard ones? It seems that with the GSM Android phones coming out lately, it's been either one or the other. The Droid Milestone for Telus supports AT&T 3G, but not T-Mobile 3G. Apparently the Nexus One supports T-Mobile 3G, but not AT&T 3G.
- mmt 17y agoSprint also uses CDMA. From the very beginning, everything I read convinced me that it's a superior transmission mode, both for me, the end user, and for the carrier. As much as heavy-handed regulation makes me cringe, perhaps if we legislated modular rf sections, this would become a non-issue. Phones are small enough for that, now.
- pyre 17y agoTraditionally carriers like Sprint and Verizon, that use CDMA have been the more draconian as far as rules go on their network (e.g. locking down phones, only allowing ringtones through their service, disabling bluetooth OBEX on phones, etc). That's why people tend to see GSM carriers in a better light (also because GSM phones are compatible with carriers around the world).
- ams6110 17y agoYEah I tried to take an old Sprint phone in to Verizon to get it activated when my wife lost her phone. They said technically it would work, but they were not "allowed" to do it.
- ericd 17y agoI'm not sure about this. By all accounts, Verizon is the one that would win in a straight quality fight, so one would think they would want to compete (and they have been competing on quality terms in their commercials railing on AT&T). As a former Verizon customer and current iPhone lock-in, I would LOVE to switch from AT&T and Verizon if it were possible with the phone of my choice.