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Sprint is on CDMA as well. AFAIK Jpananese providers use it too. CDMA is generally quite popular in Asia. Besides, it doesn't really cost that much to have GSM/

Sprint is on CDMA as well. AFAIK Jpananese providers use it too. CDMA is generally quite popular in Asia. Besides, it doesn't really cost that much to have GSM/CDMA versions of the same phone. GSM is mostly a European phenomena which is unfortunate since it is vastly inferior to CDMA. I used to be on Sprint and Verizon for years and got used to crystal clear sound. Now, even after 3 years with AT&T and T-Mobile, I still cannot get used to the pathetic voice call quality of GSM handsets (I tried Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry and Apple). Verizon doesn't have the latest phones because they never allow customers too much freedom at exchanging data. Even their basic phones come with crippled Bluetooth (so you can't upload your own MP3 - have to pay Verizon for that) and disabled tethering. With something like iPhone they'd have to disable most of the phone to make it fit their corporate dogma of controlling everything users do.

pkulak 17y ago
I don't know about vastly inferior. I'm not really even sure you could make a case that one is better than the other, really. GSM call quality tends to be poorer, but only because GSM uses less bandwidth per call. That's not really a problem with the codec, just a decision by the cell companies. Besides, all my calls these days are over 3G GSM, which uses much more bandwidth, and those calls sound great. On top of that, since GSM uses time division (as apposed to time division, which keeps the radio on for the whole call), batteries last a lot longer on a GSM device. I remember when I first switched from a CDMA network to a GSM network. I was amazed that my phone would last the better part of a week when I was used to charging it every day. I could see this being tough on device makers. People really hate phones that can't hold a charge. But they hate large phones even more. CDMA does seem to penetrate buildings a little better, in my experience.
- pauldino 17y ago
  But if you're using 3G GSM, you're really using UTMS, which is barely GSM at all. It uses a completely incompatible air interface that ditches TDMA... for CDMA.
- deleted 17y ago
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pkulak 17y ago

I don't know about vastly inferior. I'm not really even sure you could make a case that one is better than the other, really. GSM call quality tends to be poorer, but only because GSM uses less bandwidth per call. That's not really a problem with the codec, just a decision by the cell companies. Besides, all my calls these days are over 3G GSM, which uses much more bandwidth, and those calls sound great. On top of that, since GSM uses time division (as apposed to time division, which keeps the radio on for the whole call), batteries last a lot longer on a GSM device. I remember when I first switched from a CDMA network to a GSM network. I was amazed that my phone would last the better part of a week when I was used to charging it every day. I could see this being tough on device makers. People really hate phones that can't hold a charge. But they hate large phones even more. CDMA does seem to penetrate buildings a little better, in my experience.

pauldino 17y ago
But if you're using 3G GSM, you're really using UTMS, which is barely GSM at all. It uses a completely incompatible air interface that ditches TDMA... for CDMA.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]