Why You Can’t Get a Good Phone With Verizon | Hacker News Reader

Why You Can’t Get a Good Phone With Verizon

wired.com

17 pointsmjfern14 comments

Someone please explain to me why this article doesn't start and end with one word (well, acronym): CDMA. Sure, the US is the biggest smartphone market in the world, and VZW has a huge share, but look who else uses CDMA extensively aside from VZW -- China Telecom. Two giant, conservative bureaucratic entities, one state owned, one who used to be. Compare that to a more dynamic and competitive GSM marketplace. More phones, more compeition, more flexibility.

Good point. Note that this is also the reason why they're so close with RIM at the moment: More than one of Canada's major telcos (RIM is Canadian) is on CDMA, so they continue to produce phones for that standard.

That number will be dropping to one (Bell) after this year when Telus switches to GSM; the CDMA/GSM switch for Telus is supposed to happen in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics (and they'll probably run parallel networks for a little while like Rogers did with its GSM/TDMA switchover a decade ago).

Sprint is on CDMA as well. AFAIK Jpananese providers use it too. CDMA is generally quite popular in Asia. Besides, it doesn't really cost that much to have GSM/CDMA versions of the same phone.

GSM is mostly a European phenomena which is unfortunate since it is vastly inferior to CDMA. I used to be on Sprint and Verizon for years and got used to crystal clear sound. Now, even after 3 years with AT&T and T-Mobile, I still cannot get used to the pathetic voice call quality of GSM handsets (I tried Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry and Apple).

Verizon doesn't have the latest phones because they never allow customers too much freedom at exchanging data. Even their basic phones come with crippled Bluetooth (so you can't upload your own MP3 - have to pay Verizon for that) and disabled tethering. With something like iPhone they'd have to disable most of the phone to make it fit their corporate dogma of controlling everything users do.

I don't know about vastly inferior. I'm not really even sure you could make a case that one is better than the other, really. GSM call quality tends to be poorer, but only because GSM uses less bandwidth per call. That's not really a problem with the codec, just a decision by the cell companies. Besides, all my calls these days are over 3G GSM, which uses much more bandwidth, and those calls sound great.

On top of that, since GSM uses time division (as apposed to time division, which keeps the radio on for the whole call), batteries last a lot longer on a GSM device. I remember when I first switched from a CDMA network to a GSM network. I was amazed that my phone would last the better part of a week when I was used to charging it every day. I could see this being tough on device makers. People really hate phones that can't hold a charge. But they hate large phones even more.

CDMA does seem to penetrate buildings a little better, in my experience.

But if you're using 3G GSM, you're really using UTMS, which is barely GSM at all. It uses a completely incompatible air interface that ditches TDMA... for CDMA.

That's what happens when you stop innovating (and looking around at competition) and start competing on price. When all you have to offer is lower price, you're already halfway downhill.

I thought the conclusion was the fact they have a CDMA network rather than a GSM?

Remember that 700 Mhz auction? Verizon bought big and is using it to quietly build LTE all over the place.

So what happens next year when they offer data service that is a order of magnitude faster than 3G? Are they still not innovating?

LTE is promising 50-60 mbps, but field trials are showing 8 to 10. Would you drop your AT&T iPhone for that?

Would you drop your AT&T iPhone for that?

Aren't iPhone users already selected for data rate insensitivity, considering the history of both the hardware product and AT&T's data performance?

No. I wouldn't even consider it.

I wouldn't replace my PC with a glorified set-top box just to get FiOS service either.

Except... Verizon is the #1 US cellular carrier.

So even though they don't seem to be innovating or seem cool to hackers, and that from our perspective they are heading "downhill" ... from a pure business perspective, they are succeeding, aren't they?

I really can' t imagine why this forcefully pre-segmented market exists at all -- except for to keep the carriers from beating themselves to death. Then again, completely free markets rarely exist but this is bordering a cartel.

"Psst! Hey, I won't sell X and will offer only Y, if only you won't sell Y and offer only X."

I like to buy the best phone that suits my needs, and choose the best carrier that suits my needs. If those two are coupled, I am given suboptimal selection of choices as soon as I want a phone I can't get from one carrier or I want a certain carrier that doesn't deliver the phone of my choice.

Time for them to build their own android phone...

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