From: johnl@iecc.com

>>It's just like the stupidity of our CDMA/TDMA/iDEN war while the world
>>standardized on GSM.  Despite its flaws, GSM is far superior to all of
>>the US-developed systems _and_ costs less due to economy of scale, which
>>is why all US carriers are finally moving that way.
>
>Oh, c'mon, GSM came later. And it was mostly Europe that decided to use an
>international standards-making process because of the relatively small
>countries; I don't recall any other part of the world being involved.

Quite right.  It was developed by ETSI, where E stands for European.
It's a brilliant implementation of mediocre TDMA technology.  Putting
the phone's identity in the SIM wasn't a new idea but they made it
work.

>I have no idea why you would state it's superior. As it happens, I'm a
>T-Mobile subscriber (using an AT&T cell phone), but sound quality isn't
>all that brilliant and I lose coverage plenty of times when indoors.

That has everything to do with frequencies.  AT&T (GSM) and Verizon
(CDMA) are mostly at 800MHz, while T-Mo (GSM) and Sprint (CDMA) are at
1900 MHz.  The 800 MHz carriers have much better coverage because 800
propagates better than 1900.  I have switched back and forth between
AT&T and Verizon (Tracfone resells both so you can switch phones
without losing your minutes) and AT&T works better here for the sole
reason that the tower is closer and higher up.

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