CDMA "Mobile Broadband" Deployment in Europe

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=6546' target='_blank'>http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.a...?ContentId=6546</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Nordisk Mobiltelefon is launching a nationwide CDMA450 network in Norway to provide telecommunications and broadband services to consumers and enterprises. CDMA2000 is now deployed across the European continent with 12 operators offering voice and broadband data services in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and the Ukraine. Other operators are planning to deploy similar CDMA2000 services in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia and Sweden."</i><br /><br />Geekzone mentions an interesting little footnote about CDMA adoption in Europe -- while it is probably near nonexistent for mobile phone use, believe it or not, CDMA service is being offered as a mobile broadband service there. I'm guessing it's because of the availability of bandwidth in the 450MHz band, and (as the article mentions) the ease of 3G upgrades. I'm a believer in using whichever technologies work and work well for an application, so if CDMA makes sense, more power to the technology. 8)

[Clarkster]

I got quite excited about this as I live in Norway. On closer inspection, the company is Swedish, and my Swedish isn't good enough to find the right news article on their site. As a happy PPC user rather than expert, I'm not too sure what the implications of available CDMA are. Would I still use my bluetooth-paired mobile phone and "dial up modem" process to get online from my hx4700? And it'd just be faster, right? And I guess I'd need an account with these guys? I suppose I've answered my own questions. Pity Geekzone didn't put a link in their story.

[JesterMania]

while it is probably near nonexistent for mobile phone use, believe it or not, CDMA service is being offered as a mobile broadband service there.

I don't quite understand what that means. Does it mean that most Europeans would use GSM (for example) for voice and CDMA as data? Can a phone support both of these protocols at the same time?

[Janak Parekh]

I don't quite understand what that means. Does it mean that most Europeans would use GSM (for example) for voice and CDMA as data? Can a phone support both of these protocols at the same time?
I'd suspect they'd offer modem-based services, e.g., a Cardbus or ExpressCard solution. I doubt we'll see this in Pocket PCs, but who knows... time will tell.

--janak

[JesterMania]

Ah...I see. Thanks for clarifying.

[Janak Parekh]

Pity Geekzone didn't put a link in their story.
Agreed. Unfortunately, I tried Googling a bit, and while I found that the company may indeed ultimately cover Scandinavia, I didn't manage to find this recent PR or more detail about it. :(

--janak

[gilbertovp]

Here in Portugal, although all mobile networks are GSM based (as in the rest of Europe) we already have an operator offering an EVDO solution only for data, they say it will provide 2.4Mbps until the end of this year. At 36.75 euros / month (5GB traffic included), it's expensive, and you have to use an USB modem provided by them. http://www.zapp.pt/html/telemodem/telemodem.htm (in portuguese only, sorry).

[manywhere]

I think the GeekZone article has gotten the countries messed up, at least when looking at the CDMA map here (http://www.cdg.org/worldwide/index.asp?h_area=2&amp;h_country=94&amp;h_technology=999). According to the map, Sweden doesn't have CDMA in testing, but Finland, also Estonia doesn't have CDMA but Latvia. Is GeekZone getting their countries confused with neighbouring countries? :D

Anyways, I'm waiting for UMTS 800-900 or even HSDPA/HDUPA 800-900 to arrive. I hope that the UMTS 900 tests in the UK (http://www.theunwired.net/?itemid=3222) will be working just fine and that they will put them to use here faster than the last UMTS roll-out... ;)