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CDMA vs. GSM in Post-war Iraq
An anonymous reader submits: "Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) is pressing congress to favor CDMA over GSM for mobile phone service in U.S.-funded reconstruction plans. One reason for pushing this is that a CDMA system would benefit American companies, such as California-based Qualcomm, while GSM would favor European companies. Currently, GSM is the most widely used mobile standard in surrounding countries."
I think for the benefit of the Iraq people it would be best to either, us the existing standard and what the surrounding countries use. But if they want some of the benefits of the CSMA as they say in the article, they should at lest do a dual implantation of it. Why? Well so the Iraq people can chose what standard they want, the one they don't go for will by default die away, I am sure they probably will not go for CDMA since it would not be useful outside for the boarders of Iraq. Can CDMA and GSM phones exist in the same area? That is the big question that could stand in the way of my idea. But this is all thinking and we should be consternating more on the war that is going on now then rebuilding, yes we also have to look at humanitarian aid now, but that is still different from rebuilding.
Before they're hatched. Can I be on the occupied Iraq new currency designing committee? More importantly, will occupied Iraq choose Direct TV or Dish Network as its standard?
I can tell this esteemed Rep. has his priorities straight.
I really hope this lays to rest any argument about the US going there to "save the civilians from Saddam's evil."
Come on people, war hasn't even finished, and all they can think about is US cellphone company's benefits? what about FOOD, WATER, MEDICINE?
sheesh...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Seriously folks, in percentage of population, the US Military has already killed more Iraqi civilians than 9/11 killed Americans. Let's not worry about what cell phones the Iraqis will use after we win, and worry instead about whether or not it's possible for us to win.
Peace. As salaam alaikum.
Generally speaking, it would probably make the most sense to allow something resembling competition. Barring that, I would vote for GSM. It has nothing to do with which is a better standard. The point is, the middle east is a relatively small region. Cell-phone interoperability would be a huge boon -- so it would be great if the whole region used one standard. Iraq is about the size of a mid-sized state. Imagine if you couldn't use your New York cell phone in Connecticut because of standards problems.
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
I THINK NOT.
This is just another example of politics being influenced by corporate desires and lobbying.
-davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
I would feel much better if the US made the commitment to not have any economic interest in Iraq. There should be no US based company getting contracts for oil. Same goes for cell phone standards. KEEP YOUR GREEDY LITTLE HANDS OFF OF IRAQ! We are going to war with Iraq for the freedom of the people, not the plunder. Right?
What about interest in Halliburton owned by family members, golfing buddies and other fellow back-scratchers?
What neither quote makes clear is that Cheney didn't think that maintaining stock options was a conflict of interest - he said words to this effect in public. It was only after a relatively large hoohaw in the press that he finally acquiesced. It is doubtful that he has changed his mind, divestiture was purely a face-saving political move. Given that, you can be pretty sure he (or rather his accountants) will have worked every angle and loophole to indirectly keep him "on the payroll" with Haliburton and who knows how many other companies.
For another example of this kind of mindset, look at Richard Perle who, after a couple of weeks of denial-tactics finally became too much of a liability, just like the stock options, to keep around. This guy, former Bush Sr top-dog and until today a Bush Jr top-dog too, was given $700K to convince the DoD that it would be ok for Global Crossing to self off to the Chinese. Why? Because his official top-dog title was "Chairman of the Defense Policy Board," an advisory panel to the Pentagon - making close to, if not the civilian with the most influence over the DoD. Not to mention the even larger issue of his ties to arab-owned corporations. Conflict of interest? Not in any dictionary of his.
This crony capitalism mindset is endemic in the current administration and as far as I am concerned is 100x more of a moral defect than boffing an intern or two, or even ten. Because instead of just screwing a few people, it screws most of the country for the benefit of just a few people. These guys (and democrats too, but they at least know enough to be embarrassed about it) have taken the term, "spoils system" to a whole new level.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
God, what a perfect representation of what is important to the bush administration. I thought Slashdot may actually avoid this type of propaganda called "reporting."
Women and children are being killed. Our friends, neighbors, brothers and sisters are killing them/being killed, and what is the US media reporting? What do we hear about?
Who makes the bucks from war.
Never mind that has already taken a heavy toll on any US legitimacy (the founding principles of the nation itself are threatened to be as illegitimate as its current "president"). Never mind that it's at a cost of billions in tax dollars (that our children, and their children will be paying for). Never mind that it will cost thousands of lives before it is finished (and possibly hundreds of thousands of lives as the ranks of Al Qaeda grow). Never mind that it's barely even begun!
Have you no decency? If you want to report on Iraq, report on something legitimate. Report on what's happening rather than the propaganda puff-pieces.
Report on the 28 year old plumber who drowned after being ordered to cross a canal in full battle dress. Or the 20 year old lifeguard who drowned trying to save him.
Report on the seven year old girl lying in a pool of her own blood, her intestines laying beside her.
Report on the fact that the people of Iraq don't want to be "liberated." And that our friends and families will be the ones to pay the highest price of all because of the dreadful mismanagement and miscalculation of the bush administration.
Fuck rebuilding. Fuck Saddam. There's an unjust war being wrought upon the innocent civilians of Iraq, as well as the innocent soldiers of the United States. This is not their war, this is the war of a few greedy people who don't even legitimately hold the positions they currently abuse.
The bush administration has shown time and again that it has no care for legitimacy, or truth. From the moment the first Florida recount started, they have shown that they care only for protecting their own interests. They have never had the interests of the US in mind. They have never cared about those men and women who are suffering and dying right now.
With a smug smile they say, "We will liberate you from your God, your money, and your dignity."
Notes From Under *nix: blas.phemo.us
Let me ask you a question, though. This war, including the postwar reconstruction, is probably going to cost us around 200 billion dollars, and that doesn't count the cost of the munitions we're using. We've used over a billion and a half dollars' worth of cruise missiles alone so far, and the war's only a week old. Two hundred billion dollars plus would have bought us practically all the Iraqi oil we could have hauled off. Why didn't we just buy it, and save everybody a lot of time, money, and trouble?
It's not quite that simple.
Most of the money that's spent on the war is actually spent paying US companies for products and services (those cruise missiles were actually bought from someone) + salaries for servicemen.
That money is thus transfered from the US government to other sectors of the US economy.
From the point of view of the global US economy, most of the money spent on the war stays in the US.
Now, if we assume that after the reconstruction the entities that will benefict the most from the new status quo in Iraq will be US oil companies, then what this war ammounts to is:
- Having the US government spend taxpayer's money in the Defense industry to subsidize the US oil industry.
-------------
Please note that i'm only touching the economical side here. There's the whole human side (lives lost in both sides, the future of the surviving Iraqui people); political side (Bush's approval rates); and geopolitical side (will the rest of the world still trust the US?).
... people are dying in Iraq. Soldiers and Civilians. The latter die of hunger, precision bombs lack of water, stray bullets and other such things.
So here comes a US senator whose only concern is what mobile phone system one should install when it's all over. Quite frankly, this is so cynical. Not only against the iraq people but also against US soldiers. As a soldier, I'd really like to get the message: 'Go soldier, risk your life, so we can open up some market for mobile phones.'
If some European politician made any such proposal or in fact any attempt to "secure a market" at this point in time he'd be thrown out of office.
That is what makes people turn away from the US. The lack of tactfullness. Double standards (Yes, we respect the Geneva Convention - whenever it is useful to us). Turning one or two blind eyes (Who gave Saddam weapons of mass destruction when he was the bulwark against Iran?). The will to break international law whenever it serves the purpose.
The rest of the world may be afraid of the US. But there is no respect.
"Terrorism is the war of the poor and war is the terrorism of the rich. I can't see any difference between them."
Sir Peter Ustinov, UNICEF
DI Robert Lichtenberger effad@gmx.at
With the US "rebuilding the iraqi infrastructure", and effectively stating monopoly rights or the entire country despite their claims, this is another example of unilateral american thinking. I am sorry to be biased about you guys, but time after time you as a people prove me right.
1. As for GSM vs. CDMA, no self respecting idiot would bring a CDMA phone to Europe, so only self serving people would choose CDMA over GSM.
2. GSM may or may not be a better channel today, but GSM is the upgrade path to GPRS and UMTS, not CDMA.
3. Having America as the monopoly, will other providers enter the country, and who soon after the reconstruction? In a fair playing field CDMA would die out very fast in Iraq. Having the US dictate a (wrong, selfserving) decision for CDMA would cause nobody but downturned American companies grief.
Bye!
GSM? WHICH GSM? Africa, US or European frequency? GSM not as universal as most think.
It's very universal. Changing frequency doesn't mean having to change chipset design, infrastructure, etc.
CDMA is head and shoulders above - look at where the highspeed wireless is going - CDMA, not GSM.
They have different roots. GSM was specifically designed for voice data.
Plus CDMA is more efficient in its bandwidth usage than GSM. Remember GSM is still TDMA at its roots. So CDMA has better spectral efficiency.
TDMA vs CDMA was examined in depth in deciding the GSM standard. The committee decided that the TDMA system was superior (easier to build more accurate and reliable base stations was one of the factors IIRC).
Plus you should take into account the terrain and desnity - Iraq probably is not all that population dense outside of Baghdad and Basra. CDMA really comes into its element when you are out in the countryside with few sites covering large expanses of land. Under these conditions CDMA provides extremely stable audio with few frame errors to mess things up. This is because Channel Pollution is almost non-existent in these situations. Under similar conditions TDMA suffers too readily from interference and it will often blank the audio. Many people who use CDMA systems in sparsely populated areas have given this technology extremely high marks.
GSM is a compromise, which allows it to work well under both conditions. It had to satisfy all the members of ETSI, including Switzerland (sparse, all mountains) and Holland (totally flat, with large cities).
So despite the obvious political motivations behind this decision, technologically speaking, it s actually a good decision to favor CDMA.
It's not, because you restrict the technology (handsets, base stations, etc) to a couple of US companies. With GSM you can invite tenders from every company in the world, with an already mature market providing a lot of CHOICE for both handsets and infrastructure.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Don't you love half-truths when you see 'em? GSM is not only the most widely used standard "in surrounding countries", it's the most widely used standard, period.
GSM: 330 million world wide users
CDMA: 67 million world wide users
But, it seems more important to purchase national patriotic technology than good technology. (That must be why Americans still use Windows. After all, Linux originates in Europe and must so be inferior, by definition. ;)
Let's buy steel from US companies, even if it's more expensive because they neglected to modernize their factories (in Europe, just about everything was rebuilt after WW2 - and the debts for foreign help, also from the US, have long since been paid. It was a very painful process, but it paid off). And because foreign steel is now cheaper and better, phone George to introduce some nice import taxes.
Forget that the white "paint" which is used for most national buildings (eg. white house) is made in Germany. Forget that most of the cars that run the US are produced in Germany or by German companies. (BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, anyone?). Forget that under the hood of most cars made in the US you see European labels like Bosch, Siemens, Philips, etc.
While you're at it, ban not only french fries, french toast, and french kissing, but also french red wine (which might be considered a merciful fate for the wine, considering that Americans mix it with Coke!). And all that just for the fact that - understandably - most of Europe has a problem with war, for any reason whatsoever. It's even in the German constitution: Germany is not allowed to participate in non-defensive warfare. The constitution which was written by the US after WW2.
I'm waiting for the USA to ban Hamburgers, which originate from Hamburg (the 'ham' story is a myth!), Franfurters, Schnitzel, Mortadella, etc.
I remember a quote from a demonstrant in the US: "If we had invested the money now spent in war in proper education soon enough, the war wouldn't even have started."
Right.
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GSM may be an an abbreviation for French words, but GSM is a global standard originally designed by a group of European companies and organisations. Loads of countries were involved, not just France.
This argument that French products shouldn't be used is racist. I know Americans like their country, but this is racism and xenephobia on a huge scale. Shame on you all.
Finally, who gave the USA permission to build this stuff? Privatising the services in Iraq doesn't benefit them, and definately isn't democracy - it's THEFT. The services and infrastructure belongs to Iraq and after they have a democratic elected government the choice of how to run public services belongs to them.
Please note that I am not against Americans in any way, but your government really pisses me off.
A latent existence
and apparently you havent noticed the american government doesnt give a shit about iraqi people, their just in for the money.
because if they did give a shit, they would realize that GSM is better for them, because every other nation around them uses it!!!.
but no, they'll force them (because thats what the US government is used to do) to use CDMA in the interest of a couple of greedy corporations.
and btw, who the fuck is the US congress to decide which mobile phone service protocols is the iraqi people going to use ???
operation iraqi freedom indeed...
They made a wasteland and called it peace.
Tacitus, Roman historian. - 1st century AD