Comments on: Verizon switches standards gears for next-generation network

Rather than adopting CDMA industry-backed 4G proposal, wireless provider to follow parent Vodafone in building a network based on GSM industry-backed tech.

[hitman247]

very popular in asia??? lol.

Since when is Japan all of asia? i've spent time in Africa, Europe, the middle east, india and a lot of Asia and barely ever come across anyone using a cdma phone. it is strictly a standard for americans and japanese and smaller pocket countries.

[Koo Breez]

very popular in asia??? lol.

Where in the article does it say Japan runs on CDMA???

[cannabisindica]

And you have definitely not been in India....

Reliance Comm. - the company that bought FLAG has one of the largest networks in the country and its entirely CDMA. At the last count they had 28 million subscribers...

Also - having used both GSM and CDMA phones outside of the US - the latter is a better tech with much better sound quality except Verizon has terrible service.

[txrose72]

What Nobody Knows

I have not seen this reported on by ANYBODY ANYWHERE. Next Feburary, the FCC has allowed the callphone industry to drop their support of analog AMPS. Google "fcc amps phase out". I assume this will provide additional bandwidth to all cellphone companies which provide AMPS now. Verizon provides AMPS in some areas and could use the bandwidth for GSM.

[ajx1]

they SHOULD support CDMA and GSM *BOTH*

Instead of flip-flopping on their support for one protocol and then another, they should build their network to support multiple protocols, i.e. CDMA and GSM, at the same time, on the same network. This way, they could support a wider range of cellular phones, instead of locking people into a specific make and model of cell phone, as is the case now and has been since the beginning.

[xim1970]

A bit of a poor report

I was confused by this bit of information:

"At peak rates (which are rarely reached in the real world), LTE networks will let you download data at a whopping 100 megabits per second, compared to the 1Mbps or so that you'll get from a 3G EV-DO connection on Verizon's network at the moment, or a 1.5Mbps DSL connection at home."

I'm not old by any means (a young 37 yo), but I had to Google the difference between Megabytes and Megabits. I thought the 'bits would be less, and so initially read the report as being sarcastic. I was wrong, but I hope the reporter will keep in mind that bits and bytes are usually thought of as bits=small and bytes=larger. It would have been more helpful (and less tedious) if the measurement would have been given in Mb vs Mb OR MB vs MB (apples vs apples, oranges vs oranges). I also hope the reporter wasn't just copying information from a website without bothering to do the conversion. Good reporters will make the information understandable. Thanks for an otherwise informative article from a current Verizon user.

[eeee]

8 bits = 1 byte

Ethernet networks are measured in bits
10 Megabits per second (10Mbits)
or 100 Megabits per second (100Mbits)
(10/100 standard)

[Tom Krazit]

All comparisons are bits to bits

Lowercase b = bits. Uppercase B = Bytes

Mbps = Megabits per second. MBps = Megabytes per second.

For whatever reason, things like memory and storage are discussed in bytes, like 2 gigabytes of RAM or an 80GB hard drive, and networking speeds are bits per second. That's the convention that the industry settled on a long time ago.

[bestbroadbandforusers]

Verizon's decision seems less valuable for end users

Verizon is one of the operators who for a long time embraced technology based on decisions that are often lop-sided.

1.They chose CDMA without knowing it would actually give them only 2x capacity increase vs 10x which the technology proponents were claiming.

2.They chose to push aggressively on EVDO when there was better chance for success with WCDMA even if from a technology/better global footprint standpoint at least.

3.They continue to bet on 3G based technology where LTE orginates saying that its better than WiMAX which is 2.5 years ahead in terms of roll-out and technology maturity.

4.They seem to be like ostriches to the actual internet ecosystem which primarily runs today on PCs, feeling that control is being lost, but who cares I just want more subscribers who will pay a lot more for less value.

5.I just don't get it. When a PC was offered 33kbps modems thousands/millions still used it. When phones had 144kbps GPRS or slightly lesser 1xRTT nobody still used it. For once if they know the clients that really need bandwidth then they will smarter to chose a technology like WiMAX which the PC/Internet eco-system seems to be backing.

So end-all they still don't like end-users winning in their technology decisions. So their claims of open standards etc. seems to be only of face-value and their real intention is to lock you in the same 3G quagmire where they sell you the internet by the byte.