Is CDMA really the way to go?

[ICanHearYouNow]

Hi ya'll it's me again with one of my crazy-*** curious questions! lol

Anyways, I was wondering what ya'lls take/opinion on this was being that from a lot of the posts on these forums, I have read a lot about people saying how CDMA is more clearer and holds on calls from the towers a lot better, signals are a lot stronger, can penetrate buildings better, signals travel farther, etc, etc, etc.....

So I was just wondering if in the future CDMA will eventually dominate or not. Thanks!

[MasonDoctorJT]

It will never dominate as everyone,including Verizon is migrating to LTE. Which is neither cdma, or the original GSM(TDMA). LTE is the new GSM standard.

Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using HowardForums

[Extraordinary]

^ What he said, LTE is the future. It has all the advantages it seems. VoLTE will be here soon too, and eventually 1X and 3G can go away (but that still might be 10 years out)

[CharlesH]

It will never dominate as everyone,including Verizon is migrating to LTE. Which is neither cdma, or the original GSM(TDMA). LTE is the new GSM standard.

The term "GSM" can refer either to a particular (2G) air protocol, or to a consortium of companies that originally used the GSM protocol, but are moving to HSPA and on to LTE. Verizon is on a path from CDMA to LTE.

[newyork4me]

It will never dominate as everyone,including Verizon is migrating to LTE. Which is neither cdma, or the original GSM(TDMA). LTE is the new GSM standard.

Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using HowardForums

^This.

And even if they weren't moving to LTE, WCDMA (what AT&T and T-Mobile use) is much superior anyway.

[Trocks797]

And even if they weren't moving to LTE, WCDMA (what AT&T and T-Mobile use) is much superior anyway.

Which brings up a great point: CDMA was not the wrong choice from the beginning.

Going back to the early 90's, CDMA2000 1X was far superior to GSM. CDMA has always offered more capacity, more security, superior handoffs, and better spectral efficiency than anything GSM-based until LTE. This is evident in the fact that GSM employed CDMA in the 3G technologies (WCDMA). Any carrier can extend the life of CDMA by ways of 1X Advanced or Rev. B, but Verizon and most others found those endeavors to be fruitless, and instead opted for LTE. In fact, Qualcomm has since given up on their next iteration of wireless.

[Ba'al]

I believe if you add up the total number of combined subscribers on all US CDMA carriers and compare it to the total number of combined subscribers on all US "GSM" carriers, you'll find that CDMA technically already "dominates" the US market.

It's all still meaningless since as others have mentioned the migration to LTE will (thankfully) put an end to the argument. Maybe then the carriers can concentrate on differentiating themselves by value and service.

[kch50428]

Anyways, I was wondering what ya'lls take/opinion on this was being that from a lot of the posts on these forums, I have read a lot about people saying how CDMA is more clearer and holds on calls from the towers a lot better, signals are a lot stronger, can penetrate buildings better, signals travel farther, etc, etc, etc.....!

Those attributes are more due to the radio frequencies involved - not the 'CDMA vs GSM' arguments.

[Guest 214]

We are already a CDMA dominated country by customer volume and coverage

-Sent from my HTC Rezound 4G on Verizon

[Moderator HF 9]

VZW's network will be completely overlayed with LTE by the end of 2013. At that point VZW will start releasing LTE only phones using VOLTE and move spectrum from CDMA to LTE. CDMA has served us well and will be around to support users that have not migrated as well as M2M applications for probably until 2020.

[johnhere]

Yeah vz said to expect it to be around till about 2020. By then lte should be a well oiled machine.

[carcarx]

2G GSM was designed for a 15db S/N, whereas cdma IS-95 was designed for a 9 db S/N. That means more coverage and no problem with frequency re-use. That's one of the reasons why GSM decided to go to cdma in the guise of W-CDMA. cdma technologies take advantage of multi-path, ALL OTHERS are hampered by it.
That's why you'll have a terrible time holding an LTE signal through urban canyons when you're travelling at high speeds. Channel estimation due to multi-path is a killer for any OFDM (WiMax and LTE).