Jim, China is heavily into GSM. So is Europe. Toast is all they have, so while CDMA goes rolling over the top of GSM, the GSM people need to be made as backward compatible as possible or they'll go hungry [which makes people unhappy].
So, as CDMA is established in, say, Shanghai, subscribers will be able to buy a CDMA/GSM handset and roam to GSM networks. Same in Europe. CDMA won't appear ready built-out all across Europe.
Say the very first network is in Newbury, England, a person would not want to be able to use their phone only in Newbury. The phone would need to be able to work in London too, on a GSM network.
Operators need to escape from their GSM problem without losing millions of customers. They need to change their networks to CDMA. They need multimode handsets to do that. They are going to have a lot of trouble doing it smoothly.
GSM is toast! Don't be confused about that!
Maurice |
