cell phone GSM vs. CDMA

Guys I may be shopping around for a new cell phone provider. Should I take in any consideration on whether service is GSM or CDMA?

I loke CDMA better due to technical reasons. I have a tri mode phone, able to use 800Mhz analog as well as digital 800 and PCS freq. GSM is OK, but most implementations have fairly low bandwidth for the voice, relying on compression to make up for it.

Cellular (or PCS) service on a GSM phone, on the other hand, can be swapped to another phone just by moving the little SIM chip to the new phone. Thsi makes the move to a new phone almost painless compared to the 1/2 hour waiting on hold for a Verizon rep so he/she can input the new id number. I stick with phones for years, so that's not problem for me.


In short, I find my CDMA provider (Verizon) gives good voice quality, better coverage and can fall back to analog when I'm in the middle of no-where.

Daniel

So you're considering Cingular or T-Mo vs. Verizon? I think that's low on the priority by itself. Higher in my book is whether the coverage is any good where you call most of the time - like at home and work. Availability of extra services if you need that (data, etc) & cost of plans. Customer service.

(I'm on T-Mo GSM, and had ATT/Cingular TDMA and analog. Never tried CDMA)

I have and like Verizon. I'm having difficulties making calls from home which I shouldn't because I get full meter strength. About half the calls I make are very choppy on the inbound to me but the other side can hear me ok. Verizon phone rep said possibly phone as almost three years old now but this does not happen in other places. I posted about that earlier. So anyhow will do an experiment on Saturday as my friend a verizon user is coming over so will see if can repeat experiment on his phone.

Regarding the 800 mhz analog, I was looking at Verizon web site and found fewer and fewer of their phones are offering it now, mainly just a couple of LGs I think.

I use Verizon cell phone and data card all over the usa. There new plans are the best if you move around alot. They have no roaming anyplace now.

The internet card is just amazing. can be hooked up 24/7 365 and only cost $59 a month. There is a few spots that it dont work, but they are rare.

The Phone side of things. are super coverage. Worst cast i might drop down to analog. But that is rare. Them are the times my Data card dont work.

For a Truck Driver there is nothing better that can touch the coverage of Verizon. Trust me, i have tryed them all. Sprint, Nextel and AT&T are in about the same boat get past the center of Nebraska and you are S.O.L tell Salt Lake City on 80. then after you pass Salt lake. Nothing tell around Mustang NV.

If you have any other questions on Verizons Real coverage, just ask.

OHHH dont use Verizon close to the Canada boarder, they get you on the cells up there and it is a pain to call in and explane that you were not even in Canada.

Rob

geepondy said:

Regarding the 800 mhz analog, I was looking at Verizon web site and found fewer and fewer of their phones are offering it now, mainly just a couple of LGs I think.

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Not many are selling analog anymore. I had to hunt like hell to find mine.
Only a couple of years left, then all Analog towers are going dark. Lets hope they get converted over to digital before them days come. Sure they will.

But sure will miss being able to Force my phone to analog when i am setting on 1 bar of digital. Some of them old analog towers on them hill tops have one heck of a long range. Will be amazing if they get them to Digital.
One well placed digital tower will replace 4 old analog ones.

Rob

My understanding is that they will not necessarily convert the analog towers. They just want to use the spectrum for more digital channels. I forget what the ratio is, but they can put somewhere between 5 and 20 digital channels in the specrum used for one analog channel. I'm pretty sure all towers that broadcast analog are also broadcasting digital on most of the frequencies.

Yes, analog does work better with a marginal signal. Digital just disconnects. Analog let's you yell "I'll call you back"!

Daniel

I agree that analog degrades much more gracefully than digital. I'd rather hear a little bit of whooshing or hissing than the typi al br ak p of a dig tal ph ne. You're more likely to catch the whole syllable with analog.

Analog battery run-time stinks compared to digital, though. Analog phone transmitters are on for 100% of the call; digital phones only transmit in short bursts, reducing the overall load on the battery. These days talk-time is king more so that audio quality, frequency reallocations notwithstanding.

geepondy said:

I'm having difficulties making calls from home which I shouldn't because I get full meter strength.

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Those meters aren't worth a rat's ***. They're mainly for show. I've seen phones work better with no or very low meter strength readings than phones with maxxed out meters.

LMU

geepondy said:

I have and like Verizon. I'm having difficulties making calls from home which I shouldn't because I get full meter strength. About half the calls I make are very choppy on the inbound to me but the other side can hear me ok. Verizon phone rep said possibly phone as almost three years old now but this does not happen in other places. I posted about that earlier. So anyhow will do an experiment on Saturday as my friend a verizon user is coming over so will see if can repeat experiment on his phone.

Regarding the 800 mhz analog, I was looking at Verizon web site and found fewer and fewer of their phones are offering it now, mainly just a couple of LGs I think.

Click to expand...

It's hard to get the Verizon help line to document problems. We were having a simlar problem here
and they kept saying there were no other customers having problems and that my phone might be going bad. I called the next day with the same complaint, but using my other verizon line. Still got the "no other customer's having problems" explanation. I pointed out that I'd reported the problem on a different account the night before, and finally got an admission that they don't document problems in many cases. I got to a second teir support, explained that I had the same symptoms on two different phones. I got a call a week later saying they'd found a bad antenna element at the local tower. The problem went away.

On the flip side, a year later my wife started to experience frequent dropped calls and sporadic poor transmisison. My phone did not have that problem. We bought a new phone (used) on E-bay for $30 and transferred the account. The problem went away. The replacement phone was an exact duplicate of the one she loved.

If the problem is only when yo are at home, chances are that it's the tower. If it happens in other places it may well be your phone.

Daniel

geepondy said:

Guys I may be shopping around for a new cell phone provider. Should I take in any consideration on whether service is GSM or CDMA?

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gsm bands are great if you will be travelling globally, most of the world is in gsm. if sticking within the u.s. then cdma bands will give you the best reception.
i see you have verizon and like it. i have verizon too and love their great phone reception, very little dropped calls if any.
they charge much more for their plans than the other companies(t-mobile, cingular, etc.)
the downside, verizon disables a lot of great features on their phones like OBEX, multimedia, video features, because they want you to get their vcast(multimedia, entertainment) service for extra fee.
i guess if you want a phone for just phone calls then stick with verizon, if you want the most out of your phone beyond phonecalls then get t-mobile, etc.. their user interface on their phones is much less crippling than verizons.
btw, if you are interested in getting the most out of your cell phone then check out howard forums, a great cellular forum.

LOL, exactly the same thing happened to me. The first time I called and complained, I talked at length with a representative who wanted me to update the firmware on my phone. I did to no avail and called back a couple of days later and just like you, no record of previous call.

I really like Verizon and the coverage I get. Do you know any shortcuts to accessing secord tier help?

gadget_lover said:

It's hard to get the Verizon help line to document problems. We were having a simlar problem here
and they kept saying there were no other customers having problems and that my phone might be going bad. I called the next day with the same complaint, but using my other verizon line. Still got the "no other customer's having problems" explanation. I pointed out that I'd reported the problem on a different account the night before, and finally got an admission that they don't document problems in many cases. I got to a second teir support, explained that I had the same symptoms on two different phones. I got a call a week later saying they'd found a bad antenna element at the local tower. The problem went away.



Daniel

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Hey more phone questions. First about blue tooth and the disabling of features by Verizon. I have never used nor know much about it. If I buy a camera phone and if stick with Verizon am considering the Motorola 815, I want to be able to transfer my pictures to the pc either via a usb cable (most desired) or blue tooth (least desired, have to buy an adapter on pc end). Does Verizon disable the ability perform either of these actions by default on it's phones?

Also was playing with my friend's Samsung phone with an internal antenna. The cynic inside me says that the ones with external antennas are going to get better reception then some of the new ones with internal antennas. Any truth to that?

Was looking at different plans and at least for the single plans, T-mobile gives the best deal. For $40, six hundred anytime minutes and only a one year contract and free phones. Don't know how good the free phones are but they are small. I really hope I can make things work out with Verizon though.

Oh regarding analog vs. digital. When I go visit the parents in remote New England the nearest cell is about ten miles away as the crow flies but on a very high point and usually good get a low but usable level analog reading in the higher terrain of my parent's location. They recently must have added digital as well because I now see the the Verizon 1x default but only one bar and it is unusable and the phone switches to analog when placing calls. You're right about battery life, when up there and on analog, phone will not go 12 hours on standby vs. three or four days on digital.

I posted a poll here not long ago that showed cingular was the most popular followed by verizon. I am having problems with my current provider, and I did not want to reveal it in the poll. But now after even more frustration I don't mind telling everyone that I think T-MOBILE SUCKS !!!!!

I can't have a decent conversation from home, or from the office. I pretty much have to be outside. I narrowed it down to the Samsung X475 I am using. They did send me another just like it. Used, I had to pay shipping, and I have the same problem. Now they insist that I pay for a higher quality phone, or extend my contract to get one. Almost everyone I talked to in CS is a PITA.

When I signed on I was told the early termination fee was $100.00, now I am told it is $200.00. I should have caught that in the contract. That one was my fault for believing what I was told.

All I want is a phone that works. That was what I contracted for. If the phone I got doesn't work I think they should be required to provide one that does. That is what I am paying for after all. Just a phone that works.

geepondy said:

... I really like Verizon and the coverage I get. Do you know any shortcuts to accessing secord tier help?

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, not. However, I did run across this resource on how to get a Live Person on the line. [Still the First Tier support] Easy Phone Steps to Finding a Human

It's for alot of different Companies, not just Verizon.

Not exactly what you were asking for, but hope it helps you or others.

Danno

I don't know of amy shortrcuts to tier two support. I usually let the tech walk through their scripts and let them do their job and then I ask for second teir. Sometimes I ask indirectly, as in "I understand you don't have access to check X, but is there a manager or other person who might be able to do it for you?"

I guess if I wanted to be shifty, I could start the call with "I was talking to a second teir support person and was cut off. I think his name was Jim???"

Hey Bravo; keep in mind that most GSM phones can be used with any domestic GSM carrier (unless it's locked) and all you need do is swap that little chip to the other phone. That makes a $15 phone from e-bay a valid replacement.

The GSM bands used in the US use the same protocols as the european GSM phones, but the US uses a unique set of frequencies. There are phones that can hit all three bands, but they sell at a premium. We could have used the same frequencies as europe, since we had to move many microwave and private radios to new freqs to make room for PCS anyway.


Daniel

Well I did experiments last night comparing with my friend's phone and I definitely do have a bad phone. It's puzzling why I don't see it in other locations though. The signal is very strong so maybe it's overloading the front end of my phone causing the the choppiness? But then again it doesn't do it every single call. Oh well.

Now I will go shopping for a phone. I really like the Motorola Razr. It looks cool and has a nicer camera but what really does it for me is that it has excellent reception. We were doing office comparisons on phone reception and the guy that had the Razr blew the rest of us away. I'm also undecided about carriers. Stick with Verizon and I think I'll get better coverage as I travel thru the length and to upstate NH where I travel to several times ago. But Cingular blows away the other carriers for inside reception at the office where I work.

I looked on another forum about people's opinion of GSM versus CDMA and boy it's like asking the general public, do you prefer Ford or Chevrolet. Lots of strong opinions both ways.

geepondy said:

I have and like Verizon. I'm having difficulties making calls from home which I shouldn't because I get full meter strength. About half the calls I make are very choppy on the inbound to me but the other side can hear me ok. Verizon phone rep said possibly phone as almost three years old now but this does not happen in other places. I posted about that earlier. So anyhow will do an experiment on Saturday as my friend a verizon user is coming over so will see if can repeat experiment on his phone.

Click to expand...

geepondy said:

Guys I may be shopping around for a new cell phone provider. Should I take in any consideration on whether service is GSM or CDMA?

Click to expand...

No. There are about 100 other factors that are more important. The only time the technology type should be a deciding factor is if you travel overseas a lot.