Single-Chip GSM Phone on Virtual Horizon?

An anonymous reader writes "There's still the alphabet soup and corporate conflicts regarding cell phone standards in the U.S. but... there might be some hope for a single-chip GSM phone, which might open up some interesting possibilities."

Comments

Re:Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this your problem, or Slashdot's? What do you think?

Now, here are some essential bits for you. GSM is a second-generation, all-digital mobile-phone standard used all over the world except some major parts of North America. The multi-user access scheme is a (somewhat weird, IMHO) mix of frequency and time multiplexing; there's no CDMA involved. It has been design with lots of competing providers and networks in mind, therefore it has great roaming capabilities. Furthermore, since most billing mechanisms (outside of North America, that is) involve NO AIRTIME CHARGES, and actually provide for cheaper in-network connections than those of stationary phones, GSM captured the market overnight. Most GSM-covered countries (including ones far less wealthy than US and Canada) sport coverage and penetration rates that still sound like science fiction over here (US/CAN). GSM also comes with cheap cross-provider messaging (called SMS) which is as popular as actual phonecalls especially among the poor population.
There are pop-machines with phonenumbers attached to them, from which you can buy your daily dose of Canned Capitalism (COKE) by dialing the number -- the cost will be charged on your phonebill. This is just one example of things those "less developed" countries already have. Now, imagine what possibilites does a one-chip GSM phone open up in societies where almost everybody has a cellphone!

Re:blech.

[karmawarrior]

I do. cdmaOne doesn't provide basic functionality such as personal mobility (the ability to seperate your account information from the hardware you're using at the moment), a global number space, ISDN connectivity, and system-implemented network features, and the security is tough enough for my purposes - a casual snooper is going to have problems locating and fixing on a single conversation, a more highly placed snooper is likely to have access to the underlying network anyway.

UTMS, the next generation of GSM, includes all of the above features and provides a variety of air-interface technologies including CDMA, so the capacity issue isn't going to last very long. As far as I see, cdma2000 still lacks the above basic features, which I find absolutely increadible especially as GSM networks have been around now for much longer than IS-95 based stuff.

I was very relieved when AT&T started providing GSM in my area, after living here four years with only IS136 (D-AMPS/TDMA), cdmaOne, and NexTel networks available. Having used both IS136 and cdmaOne networks, I felt I was giving up a huge amount to use them, and coming back to GSM has been a joy. Just being able to have a PDA phone again (not really a great idea on a non-GSM network - if you can't leave your PDA at home without losing your connectivity, who wants such a thing?) has been fantastic.

Re:America doesn't need GSM phones.

[DrXym]

GSM would be enormously beneficial to the US. I have a GSM telephone which works practically anywhere in the world, except America. Why? Because the US thinks that the market should fight it out until one proprietary protocol wins over the others. Unfortunately this takes years and mass confusion, consumer uncertainty and overpricing reigns.

In the meantime, the rest of the world saw sense and adopted a single standard. The consequence is you can buy a phone in Thailand and use it in Ireland, you can fly from South Africa to India and still be in touch with head office.

The recalcitrance and obstinacy in the US to develop their own standard except through Gladiator-style death matches has left them isolated and way behind the rest of the world. At the end of the day it doesn't matter if the naysayers think CDMA or some variant was technically better than GSM because it still lost. Hopefully the US will learn better the next time around.