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FC: Another take on CDMA vs. GSM, from Robert Clark
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 11:37:38 -0500
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Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 15:21:03 +0800 From: robert clark <rclark () telecomasia net> Organization: wireless asia To: declan () well com Subject: Re: FC: More on Europe, US technology boom, and wireless standards Declan it's disappointing to read this pretty shallow analysis. the cdma-gsm argumenthas become as wearisome as the old mac vs ibm brouhaha and just as pointless. afew comments:* CDMA doesn't have 50m customers, it is closer to 40m, most of these in Korea,Japan and the US. * It's true that GSM proponents have continually trashed CDMA, but that is normal if unfortunate for any startup against billion dollar enterprises. whatis not normal is the degree of US political leverage Qualcomm has behind it. the start of CDMA in Taiwan and Australia (and probably Japan) has been as a directresult of high level US lobbying. The standout case was China, where Beijing clearly linked the entry of CDMA into the country to its US WTO deal. * both the CDMA and the GSM versions of next generation technology havesubstantial backing from existing operators and vendors, so it's a little earlyto be talking about faces blowing up. if anything GSM has the edge because ithas a current customer base of around 250m and is well established in Europe andAsia, in particular India and China. * The success of GSM is something of a fluke: the US industry in the early 90swas in some disarray, the japanese were unable to persuade anyone to take theirPDC technology. Just for once, the European way worked. * It's laughable that anyone would argue that GSM markets are intrinsically 'behind" CDMA markets. First, GSM markets such as Finland, HongKong and Japan are well advanced in new services - mobile banking, ticket booking, and otherinfo services have been a fact of life for 12 months and more. US cellcos come out to Asia to see how it is done. Second, the high bandwidth that is about tocome to CDMA is about to come to GSM in a similar timeframe. When it gets down to the technology, there's not much between the two. most experts agree CDMA is much better on the radio side - bigger capacity, less interference. GSM's strength is its core network. GSM has the SIM card, which provides more functionality and is convenient (eg, change your phone, but keep your phone numbers and settings). Above all, you can take a GSM phone tovirtually anywhere in the world and keep talking. CDMA is still at the crawlingstage when it comes to roaming. Let the market go figure which is better. Robert Clark Editor Wireless Asia Hong Kong
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- FC: Another take on CDMA vs. GSM, from Robert Clark Declan McCullagh (Jan 17)