Comments on: CDMA vs. GSM, which one is the best for you?

By: Luis

Luis — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:22:35 +0000

Here on Puerto Rico Verizon Wireless had the most advanced mobile infrastructure in coverage and in its EVDO. About a year ago, the Mexican company America Movil bought Verizon in PR and started to add a GSM network working parallel to the CDMA network left by Verizon Wireless. I had Verizon and is WAYY better in coverage inside buildings, while the GSM network coverage is bad. At last, the other two GSM carriers have the same coverage problems due to the physical characteristics on the island, all of the CDMA carriers have a much better quality of voice and data speeds and an incredible better signal strength at all places. CDMA is much better than GSM, depending on the physical characteristics of your place.

By: stanza

stanza — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:38:06 +0000

using a RUIM card on a CDMA enable phone now gives me the choice of changiing my phone without consulting my operator. its crasy but am cool wit CDMA than GSM which i used before changing to CDMA. i luv the speed of data transfer and dont intend changing back for now

By: jimmy t

jimmy t — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:56:29 +0000

The contacts-on-the-SIM-card issue is moot: first, phones that store contacts on the SIM can only store name and a single phone number, so most phones store their contact lists in internal memory anyway, and second, GSM carriers (T-mobile for sure) also provide the service of backing up your contact list on the system. The two significant issues (where your area is well-covered by both types of networks) are battery consumption, which is about doubl for CDMA as it is for GSM, and the ability to unlock phones and transfer to a new carrier.

By: obinna ekwom

obinna ekwom — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:39:12 +0000

this is a well thought out publication, it is excellent, punchy and direct resourceful knowledgr for anyone that stumble s upon it. well done

By: Donovan Hill

Donovan Hill — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:15:34 +0000

One important thing with GSM is the SIM card, but it isn’t just the contact list. It’s the lock in. If you have an unlocked phone you can take your phone to the carrier with the best deal and not get locked into a contract.

By: Greg Patrick

Greg Patrick — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:34:32 +0000

Now, I am really confused. One site say CDMA is better, another site say GSM is better.

As far as the using the battery on CDMA. It depends on what type of phone you have. If you have a tri-mode phone. It will use a digital signal first. So, it will use less battery power.

By: Phil Starn

Phil Starn — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:53:46 +0000

Thank you for your very constructive comments everyone.

By: purket

purket — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:58:57 +0000

elie,

i agree with you on how CDMA phones are worse than GSM phones. however, i hate to break it to you but apple did go to verizon wireless before they went to at&t. it’s just that verizon turned them down. stupid move for verizon? perhaps. (i personally think it was stupid for them to turn apple down) and one of the most awesome features of the iphone is the internet and how easily it is for us to view and use. i’ve compared EVDO to EDGE on the iphone and it took about 20 seconds to load google. I immediately understood why apple went to verizon first for their EVDO.

One correction of the guide: until verizon came out with backup assistant, sim was definitely one of the top reasons to choose gsm. But with backup assistant, sometimes it’ll be faster syncing the contacts to ur new phone through verizon than it would take for you to swap the sim card. And if you get your phone stolen/lost, your contacts are gone forever whereas the cdma carrier can just send it right back to your new phone. But CDMA still can’t transfer calendar. And if you are a traveler, you won’t be able to take advantage of international countries’ prepaid sim cards.

this guide was pretty good and had the right questions to ask yourself when choosing a carrier (except the third question). I personally think asking your friends and colleagues should be the third question.

By: Elie

Elie — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:42:07 +0000

Julio hit the nail on head when he stated there are a wider range of phones and manufacturers supporting GSM.

If I was a cell phone manufacturer, which network do you think I’m going to target first? CDMA with mayby 250 milion users? or GSM with 1 billion users?
I will quickly support GSM first, look at Apple, it came out only supporting GSM, where is the CDMA model? does it even exist in Apples road map? I think not!!

Alot of new cell phones are only supporting GSM mailny due to wider coverage (more sales)… Nokia’s N90 series some of the coolest phones only support GSM.
That leave the leftover garbage supporting CDMA. Believe me, I am on a CDMA network and am extremely frustrated at the fact that my wireless company supporting CDMA has the crappiest selection of phones.
They do offer the HTC touch, but I would prefer an Iphone over that big time.

There is very little incentive for cell phone developers to create CDMA based phones and that’s causing major issues for the format.

I do believe CDMA offers slightly better quality as well as tranfer rates, however what’s the point if it’s crippled from a product selection perspective.

By: Luci

Luci — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:43:37 +0000

i mean gsm is the leader at this time, we’ll see in the future what’s gonna happen