05-08-2006, 04:00 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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The Frustrations of CDMA Devices
Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place: CDMA devices offer great transfer rates with EVDO, and in North America at least, UMTS is almost nowhere to be seen. So if you want speed, you need an EVDO device. As a Windows Mobile geek, my frustration is that there's not a lot of choice when it comes to devices. Worse, CDMA devices (well, outside of Korea at least) don't have SIM cards that can easily move from one device to another. Why is that so frustrating for me? A few years ago, Samsung sent me an i700 for review. I was excited to review it, and had emailed the head of PR for Telus (our CDMA carrier here) in Alberta. She agreed to loan me an account with 1xRTT data so I could test the device. Great right? Not quite.
It turns out that Telus, like many CDMA carriers in North America, will not activate devices that originate from outside their network. Telus is particularly strict about this, because the engineers refused to activate the phone even with the PR person trying to convince them. Can you believe that? So, ultimately I had to send it to Janak to review, and he dished out an amazingly thorough review.
Three years later, the situation repeated itself: Microsoft sent me a Palm Treo 700w to review. I was looking forward to it, long being envious of the hardware design of the Palm OS Treo. This time, I knew Telus wasn't going to activate it, so I didn't even bother trying. It was pre-activated on the Verizon network, the idea being I'd just be on voice/data roaming here in Canada. I happily unpacked the box, charged it up...and promptly couldn't get any data service. A bit of debugging here and there, several emails back and forth with my contacts at Microsoft, and they opted to send me another one. The second 700w had exactly the same problem.  This time I got connected directly with Verizon support and they were unable to explain why it wouldn't roam. So I ended up sending the second 700w back, and once again, Janak ended up writing a huge review on the phone that I couldn't review (though he didn't get the phone from me this time). You'd almost think this was nothing more than me wanting to get Janak to write reviews once every three years. :lol:
So in the end, it always comes back to the same things: CDMA devices, no matter how cool, are significantly less flexible when it comes to being able to easily connect to any carrier. Mobile device geeks like me don't wait for a device to be offered by carriers, especially not Canadian carriers who tend to be six to twelve months behind their counterparts in the USA (it used to be much worse, believe me). The Qualcomm announcement is good news, but there's no indication of anything changing with regards to seeing SIM cards in CDMA phones. The CDMA carriers enjoy their lock-in power a little too much, and don't realize it's likely costing them more customers than it's keeping them.
So I remain a GSM guy with a SIM card, always looking for the ultimate Windows Mobile device - and never being able to step into the realm of true wireless high-speed.
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05-08-2006, 04:04 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Re: The Frustrations of CDMA Devices
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
You'd almost think this was nothing more than me wanting to get Janak to write reviews once every three years. :lol:
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What, that wasn't the case? 8O :lol:
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The CDMA carriers enjoy their lock-in power a little too much, and don't realize it's likely costing them more customers than it's keeping them.
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That's the thing: it's not costing them customers in any measurable number. Sure, the geek like you or me are going to prefer GSM. But that is something like 1% of the potential mobile-using population -- and some of that 1%, like me, sticks (suffers?) with Verizon anyway thanks to coverage and speed. Verizon is doing very well here in the US, and until that changes, they really have no incentive to change their practices.
The good news is that UMTS/HSDPA is on its way here in the US, so Cingular will pose some serious competition soon. As for Canada, well... no advice for you there.
Oh, and here's one other interesting point: for the average consumer, there is a slight advantage of lock-in -- the carrier is compelled to support them if the device doesn't work as expected. I know carrier support sucks sometimes, but it's important. Case in point: when I got my JasJar and activated it on T-Mobile, the phone module wouldn't reliably work. There was no way I was going to call T-Mobile support and try to explain to them what a JasJar is. Instead, after poking around and talking to people, I found out that the Universal/JasJar is picky with some SIMs, and I engineered an excuse with T-Mobile to get a new SIM, which did work perfectly. That may work for geeks like me, but 99% of the population doesn't want to deal with this. In fact, most GSM-toters rarely ever touch the SIM; it's put in by the cell phone salesperson and it sits there.
--janak
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05-08-2006, 04:12 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 8
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I hate all the wireless providers here in Canada. Even though Rogers is GSM it is such a ripoff. The data plans for all the major providers are a joke
(rogers and fido edge = 100mb/100$ , telus and bell evdo = 250mb/100$ )
don�t even get me started on prices for voice�..
what we need in Canada is some healthy competition in this sector and not this oligopoly that has been plaguing us for years
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05-08-2006, 04:13 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 810
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Re: The Frustrations of CDMA Devices
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Originally Posted by Janak Parekh
That's the thing: it's not costing them customers in any measurable number. Sure, the geek like you or me are going to prefer GSM. But that is something like 1% of the potential mobile-using population -- and some of that 1%, like me, sticks (suffers?) with Verizon anyway thanks to coverage and speed. Verizon is doing very well here in the US, and until that changes, they really have no incentive to change their practices.
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Ain't that the truth. Or so it seems.
But that flexibility is exactly why I stick with GSM. I can buy what I want and swap phones whenever I choose.
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05-08-2006, 04:20 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by bluetrane
what we need in Canada is some healthy competition in this sector and not this oligopoly that has been plaguing us for years
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Canada is a tough place to be a profitable carrier, if you think about it. You've got a country comparable in size to the US (even if you only consider southern Canada, it's still absolutely massive), so you've got huge infrastructure costs, but the population density is far less. This means that it promotes such oligopolies, and they can even more so dictate the terms.
I'd imagine it's the same in Oz -- Darius, got any thoughts on this?
--janak
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05-08-2006, 04:28 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 8
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Fido and Clearnet were a perfect example of healthy competition in Canada. They offered many deals that shattered price points in this country.
However they were swallowed by rogers and telus respectivly. Ah i miss the good old days of unlimited GPRS and city fido 
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05-08-2006, 04:31 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 15,171
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by bluetrane
Fido and Clearnet were a perfect example of healthy competition in Canada. They offered many deals that shattered price points in this country.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they have limited coverage at best? I remember Jason talking about how Fido's coverage was minimal outside of cities proper, but he stuck with it because of the rates.
--janak
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05-08-2006, 04:32 PM
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Developer & Designer, News Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 12,959
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Janak Parekh
I'd imagine it's the same in Oz -- Darius, got any thoughts on this?
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Very similar, though definitely not priced as bad as $100 per hundred megabytes. For example, Vodafone offers 1GB for $100 (3G or GPRS). 3 (Three) offers 1GB for $129 (3G). Some carriers here offer unlimited data (fair use) for around $50, though not at 3G speeds.
Either way, I still find it all too expensive. While prices are coming down, it's happening way too slowly for my liking. In fact, I'm not even subscribed to a data plan at the moment because of the costs. :|
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05-08-2006, 05:17 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 276
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Maybe it is time to start a "Thoughts GSM/3G Network�" operation in Canada as an MVNO? I just guess it takes a whole lotta money to get that running though. 
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05-08-2006, 05:44 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 702
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I'm in agreement with most of the posts here. It is very frustrating that all of the best (IMHO) PPCPE devices are GSM, and I don't even have a GSM Provider in my area (except one that only sells a local plan and won't support data). I don't want to stray off topic with this statement, but it is the similar to the frustration I had a year ago with the new PPC offerings from HP. They had so many to choose from but none of them. even the most expensive, offered the best features of all of them in any one unit.
I would love to move over to a GSM device for several reasons stated in all of the earilier posts, but I stick with verizon, and use DUN w/BT with my Loox720, mainly because of the coverage. I wouldn't even mind the slower speeds on GSM, because I don't use it often enough to justify the high cost (IMO) of VZW data plans, and I'm already using slow data with DUN.
Everything as it is now, I would be elated if HTC and any Major CDMA carrier in the U.S. would offer a CDMA version of the Universal/JASJAR.
I wouldn't even mind using a Palm treo 700w if they would release one with at least 64MB of RAM.
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