bad cellular info?

[nosmohtac]

I don't see this happening, but I was recently at my cell provider, and one of the sales reps was trying to talk me in to signing a new contract for a couple of free new phones. I said I wasn't interested, 'cause I was waiting to see if any of the GSM carriers were going to be available soon in my area. I told her that I know that CDMA had faster data rates right now, but I preferred the ability to use the GPRS, and still be able to accept a call. I also prefer the use of SIM cards, especially when it comes to getting a different phone (no reprogramming numbers, etc.).
She said ( and I took this with a grain of salt, as I have no faith in the info these people give ) that all of the US carriers were soon going to be CDMA.

Has anyone else heard such nonsense? I don't see why T-mobile would ever switch to CDMA with the network that is in place everywhere else in the world. It doen't make any sense for those that need a world phone, and when you look at most of the PPCPE devices, they are GSM.

[Brad Adrian]

I can tell you most adamantly that the salesperson was -- ahem -- "misinformed." There is NO way that companies like T-Mobile, Cingular, etc. are going to write off their investments in their GSM/GPRS networks. I don't believe that in the US there will be only one standard system, like in Europe. Unfortunately, the CDMA/GPRS battle will continue for quite a while.

[Janak Parekh]

Both of you are mostly right, with one minor caveat: the GSM world is moving over to a CDMA technology as well, but not cdma2000 1x that Verizon and Sprint use -- rather, they're planning to deploy wCDMA, which is based on the same principle but is a different protocol. So, technically speaking, it's not "nonsense"... just misleading. ;)

The practical implication of this remains the same as your expectations -- phones you buy on a current CDMA carrier will not work on upcoming wCDMA networks by T-Mobile, AT&T, etc. Presumably, wCDMA carriers will still use SIMs as well.

--janak