
Why You Can’t Get a Good Phone With Verizon - mjfern
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/verizon-smartphones/
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nobody_nowhere
Someone please explain to me why this article doesn't start and end with one
word (well, acronym): CDMA. Sure, the US is the biggest smartphone market in
the world, and VZW has a huge share, but look who else uses CDMA extensively
aside from VZW -- China Telecom. Two giant, conservative bureaucratic
entities, one state owned, one who used to be. Compare that to a more dynamic
and competitive GSM marketplace. More phones, more compeition, more
flexibility.

~~~
old-gregg
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
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
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.

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arithmetic
That's what happens when you stop innovating (and looking around at
competition) and start competing on price. When all you have to offer is lower
price, you're already halfway downhill.

~~~
joezydeco
Remember that 700 Mhz auction? Verizon bought big and is using it to quietly
build LTE all over the place.

So what happens next year when they offer data service that is a order of
magnitude faster than 3G? Are they still not innovating?

LTE is promising 50-60 mbps, but field trials are showing 8 to 10. Would you
drop your AT&T iPhone for that?

~~~
mmt
_Would you drop your AT &T iPhone for that?_

Aren't iPhone users already selected for data rate insensitivity, considering
the history of both the hardware product and AT&T's data performance?

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yason
I really can' t imagine why this forcefully pre-segmented market exists at all
-- except for to keep the carriers from beating themselves to death. Then
again, completely free markets rarely exist but this is bordering a cartel.

"Psst! Hey, I won't sell X and will offer only Y, if only you won't sell Y and
offer only X."

I like to buy the best phone that suits my needs, and choose the best carrier
that suits my needs. If those two are coupled, I am given suboptimal selection
of choices as soon as I want a phone I can't get from one carrier or I want a
certain carrier that doesn't deliver the phone of my choice.

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dreaming
Time for them to build their own android phone...

