Re: GSM vs CDMA Technology

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Bob Shuman wrote:
> Brent,
> 
> If you go back far enough in history, I think you will find that the U.S.
> AMPS standard was the model that was used as the driver for the GSM standard
> in Europe.  At the time each European country had its own wireless
> technology "standard" rendering it impossible to use the same phone or even
> think about roaming across system/country borders.  The European community
> looked at the US model and saw the distinct advantage of having a single
> standard defined and implemented.  IIRC., this was at about roughly the same
> time as the ECC was getting off the ground.  It was later that Ericsson and
> other GSM proponents really pushed to get the standard adopted in Asia
> pacific (and unsuccessfully until most recently in the US and South America)

Wooptie do. The USA has used a large variety of MAs and frequencies that
make it so that if you get too far from home your phone may or may not be
worth anything. About the only thing one could count on was AMPS service. 
My arguement still stands, using cellular MAs is not  a good example to 
point to as US superiority over europeans. It's more like one of leap 
froging each other. 

What really makes this example silly to use is that the handset makers 
are global companies while it's the carriers that tend to be more 
localized. 

> Interestingly enough, in the US where the original AMPS standard was born,
> two completely different and competing digital standards were emerging (TDMA
> and sometime later, CDMA) and there were even some different flavors within
> vanilla TDMA (remember the incompatible Motorola Narrow band TDMA?)  The FCC
> and the industry never really tried to pull these together and instead
> allowed the market to determine the winner/loser.   The difference between
> the incompatibility mess in Europe in the late 1980's and the US today is
> due to the continuing evolution of the intelligent hand set which supports
> multiple technologies, RF spectrum, etc.

That's nice. My point of cellular MA's being a bad example for what he
was trying to demonstrate is not even challenged by the above. 
 
> Oh well, in any event, thanks for the clarification.  Yes, its always
> interesting to look back at history and wonder what would have or could have
> happened if ....

My point still stands.