Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Considering that more and more new cars will offer bluetooth
capability, I really can't understand why Verizon doesn't offer more
phone models that are bluetooth capable - unless they can't, for
technical reasons I am not capable of understanding.

Bottom line - is there some inherent problem with bluetooth/CDMA
compatability? Seems to me that there must be. GSM providers all
provide far greater bluetooth phone selection. If there isn't a
CDMA/bluetooth compatability problem, then where are the Verizon
bluetooth phones? I don't particularly like the Moto 710 or Audiovox
6600. I am looking for a smaller, lighter phone. I am not interested
in camera phones, but would be willing to take one and just ignore the
camera.

Does anyone with some *real* technical knowledge know the answer? If
the answer is yes, and there is a current problem with CDMA/bluetooth,
is this a solvable problem in the near future (meaning that someday
soon Verizon might increase its bluetooth phone selection), or do I
need to switch to a GSM provider to get bluetooth? I would really like
to stay with Verizon if possible, but no prospects of significant
bluetooth selection would be a deal killer for me. Thanks in advance.

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

zwerl1@yahoo.com wrote:
> Considering that more and more new cars will offer bluetooth
> capability, I really can't understand why Verizon doesn't offer more
> phone models that are bluetooth capable - unless they can't, for
> technical reasons I am not capable of understanding.
>
> Bottom line - is there some inherent problem with bluetooth/CDMA
> compatability? Seems to me that there must be. GSM providers all
> provide far greater bluetooth phone selection. If there isn't a
> CDMA/bluetooth compatability problem, then where are the Verizon
> bluetooth phones? I don't particularly like the Moto 710 or Audiovox
> 6600. I am looking for a smaller, lighter phone. I am not interested
> in camera phones, but would be willing to take one and just ignore the
> camera.
>
> Does anyone with some *real* technical knowledge know the answer? If
> the answer is yes, and there is a current problem with CDMA/bluetooth,
> is this a solvable problem in the near future (meaning that someday
> soon Verizon might increase its bluetooth phone selection), or do I
> need to switch to a GSM provider to get bluetooth? I would really
> like to stay with Verizon if possible, but no prospects of significant
> bluetooth selection would be a deal killer for me. Thanks in advance.

No technical reason, bluetooth is sort of like AM radio in technical stuff,
CDMA is more like FM.. Ever notice that it is usually only available on
foriegn cars who's home countries have GSM?

Since It's a deal killer, switch now....

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

> Considering that more and more new cars will offer bluetooth
> capability, I really can't understand why Verizon doesn't offer more
> phone models that are bluetooth capable - unless they can't, for
> technical reasons I am not capable of understanding.
>
> Bottom line - is there some inherent problem with bluetooth/CDMA
> compatability? Seems to me that there must be. GSM providers all
> provide far greater bluetooth phone selection. If there isn't a
> CDMA/bluetooth compatability problem, then where are the Verizon
> bluetooth phones? I don't particularly like the Moto 710 or Audiovox
> 6600. I am looking for a smaller, lighter phone. I am not interested
> in camera phones, but would be willing to take one and just ignore the
> camera.
>
> Does anyone with some *real* technical knowledge know the answer? If
> the answer is yes, and there is a current problem with CDMA/bluetooth,
> is this a solvable problem in the near future (meaning that someday
> soon Verizon might increase its bluetooth phone selection), or do I
> need to switch to a GSM provider to get bluetooth? I would really like
> to stay with Verizon if possible, but no prospects of significant
> bluetooth selection would be a deal killer for me. Thanks in advance.


I am not an *expert* on CDMA or GSM, but I can give you a hint of what's
probably happening.

We all know comanies (especially corporations) are in business to make a
profit. Whether a phone be CDMA or GSM, I would imagine it takes a
certain amount of time and money through research and development to
create a new phone model. Now here's the bigger part of the equation:
market size. The next paragraph is an exerpt from GSM World.

The GSM Association (GSMA) is the global trade association that exists
to promote, protect and enhance the interests of GSM mobile operators
throughout the world. At the end of 2004, it consisted of 650 second and
third generation mobile operators and more than 150 manufacturers and
suppliers. The Association's members provide mobile services to
approaching 1.25 billion customers across more than 210 countries and
territories around the world.

http://www.gsmworld.com/about/index.shtml

Although there are possibly a couple of hundred million CDMA customers,
there are over 1.25 BILLION GSM customers. Because of the volume of
consumers on GSM, I would imagine GSM is more profitable for a company
than CDMA. Not only in terms of research and development, but also in
terms of royalties. Qualcomm developed the CDMAone standard, and has
since developed and deployed CDMA2000 in its various flavors. Because
of that, it still has many patents on CDMA technology. It would not be
unreasonable to assume that manufacturers of handsets have to pay
Qualcomm royalties for using CDMA. GSM (Group Speciale Mobile) started
as a group of European operators who wished to come up with a single
digital standard to replace the legacy (and incompatible) analogue
networks. While there are probably royalties for GSM as well, I would
imagine they would be much less than CDMA. For-profit companies usually
require more revenue than non-profit organizations.

In the United States, Cingular, the largest mobile operator, is GSM. In
Canada, Rogers, the larges mobile operator, is GSM. In Europe, it is
mandated that GSM be the standard (for compatibility). Many other
countries have chosen GSM as the standard (or a good portion of the
mobile community). Also, with GSM, which has also been dubbed "Global
Standard for Mobiles", there is one set of standards. With CDMA, there
are several. You have CDMAone, the legacy CDMA Network, you have the
CDMA2000 (including CDMA2000 1xrtt and CDMA2000 EV-DO), you have a CDMA
standard in South Korea that is compatible with GSM SIM cards, and you
have yet a different CDMA standard in Japan. Not to mention the wCDMA
version which is part of GSM.

If you wait long enough, I think we will see some king of CDMA
world-wide standard coming out, but it will not be any of the CDMA
flavors that are currently in use. Too many people like standards of
GSM (especially the SIM card and voice quality) for those to be given
up. But it will probably take a long time. The United States still
mandates its national standard of 1983. It's 2005.

TH

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Tropical Haven wrote:
> In Europe, it is
> mandated that GSM be the standard (for compatibility). Many other
> countries have chosen GSM as the standard (or a good portion of the
> mobile community). Also, with GSM, which has also been dubbed "Global
> Standard for Mobiles", there is one set of standards. With CDMA, there
> are several. You have CDMAone, the legacy CDMA Network, you have the
> CDMA2000 (including CDMA2000 1xrtt and CDMA2000 EV-DO), you have a CDMA
> standard in South Korea that is compatible with GSM SIM cards, and you
> have yet a different CDMA standard in Japan. Not to mention the wCDMA
> version which is part of GSM.

Just want to point out that the CDMA-one and the CDMA2000 protocols
(including the Korean version, but not the Japanese version) are
compatible with each other, down to being able to co-exist on the same
frequency band at the same time. An old CDMA-one phone will work fine on
a CDMA-2000-capable cell site, and a new CDMA-2000-capable phone will
work on an old CDMA-one cell site. Upgrading cell sites between CDMA
versions is often no more than a new software load, or at most, swapping
a few cards.

In the US, with IS-136 ("TDMA" ) and AMPS being phased out, and Nextel
possibly migrating to CDMA with the merger with SprintPCS, that leaves
CDMA and GSM as the two protocols in use. Hardly a proliferation of
incompatible standards. And there is the issue of GSM migrating to a
CDMA air interface (wCDMA), which requires lots of new hardware (both in
the cell sites and the mobile phones) and frequency allocation issues,
since it is incompatible with the current GSM air interface.

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:53:34 -0800, "Peter Pan"
<Marcs1102NOSPAM@HotmailNOSPAM.com> wrote:

>No technical reason, bluetooth is sort of like AM radio in technical stuff,
>CDMA is more like FM.. Ever notice that it is usually only available on
>foriegn cars who's home countries have GSM?

It's also available on high end US manufactured vehicles (as much as
vehicles in the US are highly composed of foreign parts and have
partial assembly offshore.)

Verizon has its reasons for not offering more CDMA models with
Bluetooth, but they're not sharing what that reason is.

And Bluetooth is *hardly* like AM radio. You'll have to come up with
a better analogy than that one. Do you even know what you're talking
about or is this only just your own personal wacky speculation?

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Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

CharlesH wrote:
> Tropical Haven wrote:
>
>> In Europe, it is mandated that GSM be the standard (for
>> compatibility). Many other countries have chosen GSM as the standard
>> (or a good portion of the mobile community). Also, with GSM, which
>> has also been dubbed "Global Standard for Mobiles", there is one set
>> of standards. With CDMA, there are several. You have CDMAone, the
>> legacy CDMA Network, you have the CDMA2000 (including CDMA2000 1xrtt
>> and CDMA2000 EV-DO), you have a CDMA standard in South Korea that is
>> compatible with GSM SIM cards, and you have yet a different CDMA
>> standard in Japan. Not to mention the wCDMA version which is part of
>> GSM.
>
>
> Just want to point out that the CDMA-one and the CDMA2000 protocols
> (including the Korean version, but not the Japanese version) are
> compatible with each other, down to being able to co-exist on the same
> frequency band at the same time. An old CDMA-one phone will work fine on
> a CDMA-2000-capable cell site, and a new CDMA-2000-capable phone will
> work on an old CDMA-one cell site. Upgrading cell sites between CDMA
> versions is often no more than a new software load, or at most, swapping
> a few cards.

I wasn't trying to comment on compatibility between Qualcomm's CDMA
flavors, I was just using that to express royalties, making sure to
include CDMAone as some people think 1x is the first CDMA standard. I
guess I don't know much about the Korean version of CDMA, but I do know
that it requires SIM cards. Rogers (in Canada, of course) has extensive
roaming agreements with Korean operators to the point that you can rent
a handset and use your SIM card on either network (not sure if Korean
networks can suppport ESNs by configuration).


> In the US, with IS-136 ("TDMA" ) and AMPS being phased out, and Nextel
> possibly migrating to CDMA with the merger with SprintPCS, that leaves
> CDMA and GSM as the two protocols in use. Hardly a proliferation of
> incompatible standards. And there is the issue of GSM migrating to a
> CDMA air interface (wCDMA), which requires lots of new hardware (both in
> the cell sites and the mobile phones) and frequency allocation issues,
> since it is incompatible with the current GSM air interface.

When all other technologies (AMPS, iDEN, and TDMA) are phased out, it
will leave only 2 technologies. However, TODAY there are five running.

The handset issue is not different from a CDMAone handset needing to be
swapped out in order to take advantage of CDMA2000 EV-DO. And yes,
there are some issues with CDMA/GSM compatibility. They both have their
advantages and disadvantages. While CDMA based interfaces are generally
more spectrally efficient, TDMA based interfaces generally have higher
voice quality in terms of voice communications. While I currently use a
GSM service as my primary means of voice communications, if I had to
choose between CDMA or wireline, I would go back to wireline as I feel
that CDMA currently does not have the voice quality available that GSM
and wirelines do.

In fact, when I lived in rural areas and used CDMA, I found that
"digital" service was unreliable...calls dropped frequently even though
signal was strong, voice quality would sometimes be acceptable (not
good, but acceptable) and would go up and down during a call. I found
myself forcing analog before every call I made...that way it would be
less likely to drop. Analog with strong signal far outdoes the voice
quality of CDMA (and sometimes even GSM). While some of these problems
have probably worked themselves out as the carriers invested more into
their CDMA networks, some problems remain such as variable voice quality
and variable signal ("shrinking cell" effect?) remain. I also think the
idea of SIM cards is a big plus for the GSM operators, as it makes
changing of handsets for users much easier and more convenient (such as
phonebook following SIM instead of phone, the same text messaging and
other certaing system settings, like GPRS/EDGE).

As I think CDMA will be the wave of the future, I also feel there will
be a much different CDMA standard that wins out. If new developments
occur, it might not even be compatible with *any* current CDMA
standards. I also think SIM cards are the wave of the future. I guess
within the next 20 years, we'll probably find out.

TH

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 05:22:17 +0000, Tropical Haven wrote:

> if I had to choose between CDMA or wireline, I would go back to wireline
> as I feel that CDMA currently does not have the voice quality available
> that GSM and wirelines do.

You really should compare apples to apples here. At least in most areas
of the US, the network quality is more important than the protocol.

I'll take three friends as examples. Friend A has a Sprint PCS phone
(CDMA), Friend B has a T-Mobile phone (GSM), and Friend C has a AT&T GSM
phone (now Cingular). By and large SPCS has the superior voice quality.
It's been a long time (I'm thinking 3-4 years) since I've gotten a
really distorted call from a SPCS customer. Friend B often sounds
distorted. Friend C was just awful the vast majority of the time, far more
distorted than Friend B ever was. AT&T finally sunk some money into
building out their network (before being assimilated back into SBC). Now
Friend C is on par with Friend A in terms of voice quality.

Of course phone choice makes a difference too.. with the 800mhz bands you
really do want an extendable antenna. The difference between my Nokia
5185i with the antenna fully extended, and the 6185 with its stubby
antenna has become significant now that I've moved to what seems like a
VZW black hole. Of course if I force the 6185 to Sprint, the coverage is
beautiful.

I will not even begin to rant about SBC and the quality of the landline
I've got from them (I'm behind a DAML).

--
alex

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 07:05:41 GMT, Alex Zepeda
<usenet@blarf.homeip.net> wrote:

>Friend B often sounds
>distorted.

Which means absolutely nothing. He could have a different phone or he
could be in a marginal reception area or any host of other conditions
that do not make any kind of absolutes. And a lot of what you say is
purely your own personal preference and what you perceive. What one
person determines as "unnatural" sounding another may think is
perfectly fine.
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Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Joseph wrote:

> Verizon has its reasons for not offering more CDMA models with
> Bluetooth, but they're not sharing what that reason is.
>

Of course you are correct that Verizon has its reasons for not offering
more CDMA/bluetooth models - otherwise, they would. But I can't even
dream up a reasonable explanation (obviously, it has something to do
with money). But doesn't it seem logical that offering more desireable
handsets would attract more customers? I really don't get it at all.
Unless (again) there is some technical problem with the CDMA/bluetooth
phones - and that was my original question. If there is no such
problem, then I just can't conceive of any reasonable explanation for
not offering more of these phones - except that it must have something
to do with money. I wonder what real explanation is!

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

zwerl1@yahoo.com wrote:

> Of course you are correct that Verizon has its reasons for not offering
> more CDMA/bluetooth models - otherwise, they would.

There simply aren't a ton of CDMA bluetooth handsets out there. I wonder why,
though I have my theories...

--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Richard Ness wrote:
<cut>
> You pay your monthly bill not for the phone, but for access to the SYSTEM.
> No matter how feature laden or fancy a phone is, it is the SYSTEM that, in
> reality
> carries and delivers your calls, data, etc. The phone is a very minor part
> of the whole.
<cut>

Not to be disagreeable, but a poor phone will not work well with even
the best "SYSTEM." My first phone was a cheap Nokia which didn't work
worth a darn out in the sticks. I traded for a Moto T730 and get much
better results.

Tom

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

> There simply aren't a ton of CDMA bluetooth handsets out there. I
wonder why,
> though I have my theories...
>

Why not? What do you think the reasons are? I'm very curious. There
HAS to be some reasonable answer.

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

zwerl1@yahoo.com wrote:
>>There simply aren't a ton of CDMA bluetooth handsets out there. I
>
> wonder why,
>
>>though I have my theories...
>>
>
>
> Why not? What do you think the reasons are? I'm very curious. There
> HAS to be some reasonable answer.

My guesses are:

1) because the CDMA carriers haven't asked for them or
2) because there is some engineering issue involved with putting BT in a CDMA
phone.

But they're just guesses.



--
JustThe.net - Apple Valley, CA - http://JustThe.net/ - 888.480.4NET (4638)
Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"The wisdom of a fool won't set you free"
--New Order, "Bizarre Love Triangle"

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Richard Ness wrote:
> anyone with a clue should know that the phone is only an access
> device.
> You pay your monthly bill not for the phone, but for access to the
SYSTEM.
> No matter how feature laden or fancy a phone is, it is the SYSTEM
that, in
> reality
> carries and delivers your calls, data, etc. The phone is a very minor
part
> of the whole.
>
> Mikey, your (fairly constant) assertion that Verizon won't last "much

> longer" is
> so moronic, it's hard to even address it. They are signing up
customers in
> droves.
> Why? Because, they have a good SYSTEM. They spend money on the
SYSTEM.
> It is their SYSTEM that is superior.

I agree with you. I currently use Verizon (I got rid of ATT a couple of
years ago because of too many dropped and garbled calls and far too
many dead areas - even in the NYC area; one of my children uses
T-Mobile and likewise has markedly worse service than I do (he is
waiting for his contract to lapse so he can switch to Verizon).
Verizon is definitely the best network, in my opinion, and it seems to
me that it is the best by a considerable margin. But their selection
of phones is probably the worst! Still, I fully agree that the system
is much more important than the phone. I'm staying with Verizon despite
their phones.