OT: Telus "3G" network?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 05:05:07PM -0500, William Muriithi wrote:
> Sorensen,
> 
> > of the world.  I believe all 3 intend to roll out LTE (or whatever 4G
> > is called).  Perhaps someone finally realizes that being tied to a
> > single supplier (Qualcomm) with a bad attitude isn't good for business
> > long term, and that being able to have your users roam anywhere in the
> > world is profitable.
> 
> Well said. Basically, choosing CDMA was a very bonehead move on their
> side. It was doomed from the word go because of patent. Well, that
> would have been ok if there was no patent free alternative, but in
> this case, GSM did have that property. This meant everybody except
> North Americans went GSM and it took the lion share of the market.
> Handset manufactures therefore tended to release all the nice phones
> for GSM, and CDMA phones were mostly an after thought.  And as if
> market share disadvantage was not enough,  Qualcomm was not helping to
> say the least.
> 
> They actually initially wanted to wait until LTE comes out around
> 2011. However, they realized waiting that long would have essentially
> sealed their fate, considering all the nice smart phones are GSM
> based. By 2011, majority of the people in developed country should be
> carrying around a smart phone.
> 
> So, essentially, they have spent around half a billion on GSM, and in
> 2011 roll out again a LTE network. They might not break even on this
> investment, but at least, it kind of assist in retaining their current
> user base. Do not feel bad at the death of CDMA, and its kind a good
> lesson to the pro patent mindsets

Well it was the reason I switched from Bell to Rogers for my cell phone
last year.  Not that I think rogers is a great company, but for cell
phones GSM is the way to go.  At least now I could keep my cell phone
number when I moved.  I even told the Bell guys when I canceled that I
wanted GSM and that since they didn't have it they were of no use.
My wife dropped her phone and it broke and having to go to bell to get a
new one simply sucks.  With GSM I can just move the SIM card to another
phone and it's back in business.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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