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Home >> Know the basics >> GSM or CDMA? How does one choose?
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GSM or CDMA? How does one choose?
By: | Jul 16, 2010
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The GSM Association of networks is an international organization and was founded in the year 1987, whereas CDMA is a proprietary standard that was designed by Qualcomm in the United States, and has been the dominant network standard for most parts of Asia. There are always those on both sides that firmly believe either GSM or CDMA architecture is better than the other. 
 
In the following article we explain both pros and cons of GSM and CDMA networks.
GSM or CDMA
  1. Coverage: The most important factor that comes to mind when one is choosing a network is of getting good uninterrupted service in the area that the phone will be used in. 
  2. Data Transfer Speed: Since the day mobile phones have been doing double and triple duty as devices that stream videos, receive podcasts and use email devices, speed has become really important for those who use the phone for more than just making calls. CDMA was historically faster than GSM when it came to data transfer speeds, but now both boast 3G standards, or 3rd Generation wireless connectivity, so the data transfer speeds are more or less the same.
  3. EVDO, also known as CDMA 2000, has been CDMA's answer to the need for faster speed with a downstream rate of about 2 megabits per second.
  4. GSM's answer to that technology has been called EDGE which translates to Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution, which boasts data rates of up to 384. And with the introduction of 3G the data transfer speeds have gone up to 5-7 megabits per second.
  5. Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards: All GSM phones use SIM cards whereas only a few CDMA phones use SIM cards. The removable SIM card allows these phones to be instantly activated, or interchanged or even swapped out and upgraded for a higher capacity card, all without any intervention by the network carrier. 
  6. The CDMA equivalent is an R-UIM card, which is only available in parts of Asia. A lot of CDMA carriers require proprietary handsets that are linked to one carrier only and are not card-enabled, so in order to upgrade a CDMA phone, the carrier needs to deactivate the old phone and then activate the new one. So the old phone ends up becomes useless.
  7. Roaming: Both these networks have a fairly concentrated coverage in all the major cities and along major highways. GSM carriers, however, have an association of roaming contracts with other GSM carriers, which allows for a wider coverage of more rural areas however CDMA networks may not be able to cover rural areas as well as GSM carriers, and even if they sometimes have a contract with GSM service providers for roaming in the areas their networks don’t cover, the charge to the customer will be certainly higher.
  8. According to a survey done by a website called CDG.org, CDMA networks have over 270 million subscribers worldwide, whereas a survey done by GSM.org has shown over a billion consumers of GSM networks.
 
 
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Comments:

Aug 12,2010 | Prateek says

gud article:-). In India GSM has proved to be a better service with better connectivity and more options

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