Global carrier’s leaving CDMA behind and moving to GSM
Telus the second largest cellular provider in Canada is considering a switch from what Chris Sorenson calls “betamax technology” CDMA to the globally accepted cellular protocol GSM.
With 85% of the planets population on GSM Telus are thinking ahead in my opinion. North American CDMA carriers are now seriously examining their international roaming revenues – or the lack of them in reality.
It’s not just North American carriers: Telstra are now examining the prospect of a move to GSM also possibly because of the massive initial saving in the operation of a GSM network or more than likely due to the fact that handset manufacturers are allocating 85% of their new product to GSM forces CDMA carrier to invest in handset production.
CDMA customers who need to travel have very little options available other than Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, Israel, Venezuela or the recently released Blackberry 8830 world edition or perhaps a MAXroam sim.
Telus estimates moving to GSM would put it in line for a share of the almost $500 million that at present goes to its competition Rogers Communications Inc. This is serious revenue loss and with Canada now climbing its way up to the top five winter destinations for European skiers, this figure is only going to increase.
Written by Pat Phelan and Florian Seroussi
Not a coincidence then that Nokia is racheting up its sales in the the US.
Are Qualcomm knackered?
Alot of the new market (Africa/India/Iran/South America) networks are all being built on at least GSM, if not new WCDMA/3G networks.
The question is: how much money is it going to cost to switch to GSM? Maybe they’ll do what Verizon Wireless is reportedly doing and migrating to LTE, which is GSM’s version of 4G.