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For everyone's information ("CDMA doesn't have SIM cards!!11eleven!"), a recent development is the R-UIM card, which evidently can work as either a CDMA R-UIM card, or a GSM card. However, it seems that it is only for personal information, you can't just swap them out:
"*Enables users to program personal information once and roam between CDMA and GSM networks with a multimode device"
It seems that the RUIM card may work as a SIM card:
http://www.china.org.cn/english/BAT/109251.htm
Does anyone have any better info on this?

Here: http://www.cdmatech.com/products/snapdragon.jsp

Qualcomm announced the same kind of thing for CDMA already:

http://www.cdmatech.com/news/releases/2005/050504_ qsc.jsp

I have a Sprint RL-4920 phone, and I use Sprint Users to upload my ringers. Midi needs no conversion, but the software I use to convert non-midi files to the Qualcomm PureVoice format using the Purevoice Converter. I have not had to pay a single penny for ringers, Applets, or Screen Savers. Like what the original post said, I can put what I want on there, not what is "popular" and it's free instead of paying at least $1 for 20 to 30 seconds of audio.

you are forgetting that the phone manufacturers also make the cell towers that the telecommunications companies deploy.

If you can get Splinter Cell on your phone, that means there are developers at the phone manufacturer that are working on that, rather than making the whole system better.

oh, and as an aside, why in the blue hell would you want to be in an "immersive" 3D environment on a 1.5 inch screen? That's more worthless than wanting to watch a movie on your phone!

It's very easy to turn sample files into ringtones for free. For Sprint PCS users, the Xingtone software just creates a GCD file (more info) and hosts is on a website for your phone to download. It converts the WAV file to Qualcomm PureVoice (.QCP) format (which you can do using Qualcomm's free converter for Windows and Linux). There's more info here.

It's very easy to turn sample files into ringtones for free. For Sprint PCS users, the Xingtone software just creates a GCD file (more info) and hosts is on a website for your phone to download. It converts the WAV file to Qualcomm PureVoice (.QCP) format (which you can do using Qualcomm's free converter for Windows and Linux). There's more info here.

I actually RTFA and found this software isn't much different than using a basic freeware wave editor to crop an audio clip down to 30 seconds or so and then converting the resulting output with whatever compression format your cell phone uses for digital audio. I've done this with my Sprint phone using Qualcomm's free converter and it basically sounds absolutely horrible for anything except voice/a capella clips.

I was really hoping for something that uses intelligent waveform analysis to help you render a decent sounding MIDI file from the original digital audio. MIDI ringtones are really the only way to end up with something that remotely resembles the original song.

As for the RIAA's objections, they've been polluting P2P networks with MP3s that contain 30 second clips of the chorus/hook looped over and over for the entire original duration of the song. They're worthless enough to distribute on P2P, but they're lost revenue as ringtones. I get the feeling the RIAA is in the business of hypocrisy and music is just a side thing.

Someone already mentioned that GSM phones can have a "SIM" lock, which some providers use to keep the phone from running on other provider's networks. For most phones, it costs the customer about $25 to get their phone unlocked.

In the CDMA world, there are no SIM cards on a phone (at least not yet, Qualcomm has proposed a R-UIM card, which looks like a SIM card, and should be inter-operable with a SIM Card, but that's a story for another day).

CDMA providers have the ability to put a MSL (If I Remember Correctly, it stands for "Master Subsidy Lock"), which will prevent the phone from taking PRLs (Preferred Roaming Lists) from other providers. So, you're phone will never be able to use the network other than the one that sold you the phone. Currently Sprint puts a MSL on all of their "cool" phones so that Verizon customers can't buy them and use them on Verizon's network. (The Samsung A500 is a great example).

Or you could get any phone from sprint that supports pcs vision. Qualcomm makes a free tool to convert wav's into ringers you can download right to your phone (they're bigger than midi ringers of course) Anyone who's into cool new phones and wants a service that won't charge you an arm and several legs for data use should check out the above. I don't wanna count the hundreds of dollars I'd owe if I'd used the same amount of data on at&t's network that I have on my $10 unlimited data plan.

and here - for a CDMA FAQ

and here for why CDMA is better than analog along with a whole lot of other shit as to why dropped calls are far less frequent on digital networks as opposed to analog ones...

> what about the price & availability of [CDMA] handsets as compared to GSM, GPRS and UMTS ones?

Negligible difference, for the same reason that a P-III that cost $$$ when newly-introduced is throwaway-priced today: handsets are only as costly as the demand. In fact, a W-CDMA (UMTS) handset that also supports vanilla GSM would be costlier, because effectively you have to put two phones into one. CDMA handsets remain compatible with older CDMA networks, including CDMA95.

> And what about Qualcom royalties, do they exist also in GSM 3G?

This was probably the single biggest grouse about CDMA - Qualcomm's money gouging. El Reg, never one of Qualcomm's biggest fans, reports though that for CDMA2000 they have reasonable royalties - 5-6% of equipment cost.

Incidentally, Qualcomm also markets W-CDMA which is used in GSM based 3G networks/UMTS, because it owns the patents. So I guess it wins either way! :-|