Mike Temporale
12-16-2005, 08:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2005-12-15T195102Z_01_SCH528215_RTRUKOC_0_US-SIEMENS-NETWORKS.xml' target='_blank'>http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2005-12-15T195102Z_01_SCH528215_RTRUKOC_0_US-SIEMENS-NETWORKS.xml</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Siemens believes North American telecoms operators could shift to the GSM mobile standard from the rival CDMA system, a senior company executive said in an interview published on Thursday. "Latin America is already moving from CDMA technologies to GSM," Christoph Catselitz, the head of Siemens AG's mobile networks business told Finnish business daily Taloussanomat. "I would not bet on North America continuing with CDMA." CDMA (code division multiple access) technology was invented by San Diego-based Qualcomm and the company delivers virtually all chips needed in CDMA networks and mobile phones used by some 500 million consumers mostly in the Americas and Asia. The rival European-invented Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) has 1.6 billion users globally, according to the GSM Association."</i><br /><br />While I can clearly see the benefits of GSM, I'm not sold on the North American closing down their CDMA networks in favour of GSM. They have already invested a large amount into upgrades to make the networks EVDO compatible, and EVDO kicks EDGE's butt. So why toss it all a way? I think this is just wishful thinking on Siemens part.