Pyra phone module for US market - GSM or CDMA or both?

[Grench]

My favored carrier is CDMA - very common in the US.  Most of the rest of the world is GSM.

Will the Pyra as envisioned work on a US CDMA phone network?

Of particular interest to me is if it will work with US Cellular (CDMA).  They're the only ones that get a signal inside my house.

 

[Natsu]

Well, the one that was being look at was GSM only. How does CDMA work for a phone/device that the carrier isn't selling?

 

[WizardStan]

Well, the one that was being look at was GSM only

No it's not, it's a UMTS module with GSM capabilities. That being said, only the PHS8-P has WCDMA capabilities (seemingly) and I'm not sure whether ED is going to go with that or with a PHS8-E/U split market.
Who's your carrier?

 

[Natsu]

No it's not, it's a UMTS module with GSM capabilities. That being said, only the PHS8-P has WCDMA capabilities (seemingly)

That's what I meant when I said GSM only. That the one that was being look at doesn't have CDMA. My fault for being unclear.Still I wasn't aware that PHS8-P have CDMA.

I'm not sure whether ED is going to go with that or with a PHS8-E/U split market.

Who's your carrier?

PHS8-P covers "everything" 3G. So, I expect that he will use that. Otherwise, he should just go straight to 4G.
T-mobile. Which 4G is needed for full 3G coverage.

 

[WizardStan]

Ah yes, you're in the same boat as I am. Wind Mobile in Canada uses the UMTS-IV band which none of the PHS8 variations cover. We'd have to go full LTE on the PLS8 for that.

 

[groovechicken]

The problem with CDMA is getting a device activated on the carrier you use if it is not one of their supported devices. For instance, I discovered that Ting (reseller of Sprint) cannot activate a device that is running CyanogenMod even if the device is a Sprint device. You have to activate it first with the default ROM, then put CyanogenMod on it. I know Verizon pretty much refuses to activate any device that is not in their IMEI database. I don't think CDMA will do you much good in the Pyra even if you use a company that is cool about using any device they can find a way to activate like Ting.

 

[Granitehead]

How does that work in the US? What kind of activation is this? Here around you can just buy a SIM card (with pretty much any contract you want) and then put it in any device you want.

 

[Neelix]

CDMA doesn't use SIM cards for identification.  (My first phone was CDMA, but I never tried to switch carriers with it. I switched to 3G when they shut down the CDMA network here.)

- Neelix

 

[God Ginrai]

I know Verizon pretty much refuses to activate any device that is not in their IMEI database.

That used to be the case. I'm not so sure that's true anymore.

-God Ginrai

 

[SNESFAN]

Sprint will not allow unregistered IMEI on their CDMA network, sub carriers going through sprint however will allow "unlocked" phones on their network though. I don't know if Verizon does or not. I would prefer pyra using GSM only for the SIM card aspect, it makes switching out phones seamless and the carrier need not be involved.

 

[WizardStan]

Still I wasn't aware that PHS8-P have CDMA

I'm sorry, I was wrong, I completely mucked that up. WCDMA actually has nothing to do with CDMA, ignore anything I said to the contrary, I'm an idiot.

 

[Natsu]

I'm sorry, I was wrong, I completely mucked that up. WCDMA actually has nothing to do with CDMA, ignore anything I said to the contrary, I'm an idiot.

Oh, I see. Everyone make mistakes. lol

 

[God Ginrai]

Sprint will not allow unregistered IMEI on their CDMA network, sub carriers going through sprint however will allow "unlocked" phones on their network though. I don't know if Verizon does or not. I would prefer pyra using GSM only for the SIM card aspect, it makes switching out phones seamless and the carrier need not be involved.

I'm the other way around. I prefer to have no module because I use Verizon, and I don't want to deal with the hassle of getting it working on a CDMA provider. If it had been a 4G module, this would have been a lot easier.

-God Ginrai

 

[levi]

Yeah, WCDMA is basically GSM 3G AIUI.  I don't really understand how the American (or Japanese) markets work though, beyond basic 2G CDMA and EDGE.  Does 4G mean you start using a SIM card?  Otherwise, how is US 4G different to (GSM) 3.75, 3.5, 3, 2.5 or 2G?

 

[SNESFAN]

Yeah, WCDMA is basically GSM 3G AIUI. I don't really understand how the American (or Japanese) markets work though, beyond basic 2G CDMA and EDGE. Does 4G mean you start using a SIM card? Otherwise, how is US 4G different to (GSM) 3.75, 3.5, 3, 2.5 or 2G?

Its all CDMA, no Sims. The different speeds operate on different frequencies. LTE and wimax are the major 4g technologies at the moment. LTE can be Sim, but for CDMA carriers they chose to remain on CDMA instead of piggy backing on the GSM 4g networks. The only CDMA phones with SIM are worldphones that can be used outside the states where its primarily GSM tech, but while in the states the SIM doesn't do anything.

 

[hitbyambulance]

"Many Sprint and Verizon phones now have SIM cards, but that isn't because of CDMA. The SIM cards are generally there for Sprint's and Verizon's 4G LTE networks, because the LTE standard also uses SIM cards. The phones may also have SIM slots to support foreign GSM networks as "world phones." But those carriers still use CDMA to authenticate their phones on their own home networks."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407896,00.asp

"GSM came first. It's a "time division" system. Calls take turns. Your voice is transformed into digital data, which is given a channel and a time slot, so three calls on one channel look like this: 123123123123. On the other end, the receiver listens only to the assigned time slot and pieces the call back together.

The pulsing of the time division signal created the notorious "GSM buzz," a buzzing sound whenever you put a GSM phone near a speaker. That's mostly gone now, because 3G GSM (as I explain later) isn't a time division technology.

CDMA required a bit more processing power. It's a "code division" system. Every call's data is encoded with a unique key, then the calls are all transmitted at once; if you have calls 1, 2, and 3 in a channel, the channel would just say 66666666. The receivers each have the unique key to "divide" the combined signal into its individual calls.

Code division turned out to be a more powerful and flexible technology, so "3G GSM" is actually a CDMA technology, called WCDMA (wideband CDMA) or UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone System). WCDMA requires wider channels than older CDMA systems, as the name implies, but it has more data capacity.

Since its inception, GSM has had many more add-ons and evolutions than CDMA. As I mentioned above, WCDMA is considered the 3G version of GSM technology. To further speed things up, the 3GPP (the GSM governing body) released extensions called HSPA, which have sped GSM networks up to as fast as 42Mbps, at least in theory.

Our CDMA networks, meanwhile, are stuck at 3.6Mbps. While faster CDMA technologies exist, U.S. carriers chose not to install them and have instead turned to 4G LTE to be more compatible with global standards."

 

[God Ginrai]

Yeah, WCDMA is basically GSM 3G AIUI. I don't really understand how the American (or Japanese) markets work though, beyond basic 2G CDMA and EDGE. Does 4G mean you start using a SIM card? Otherwise, how is US 4G different to (GSM) 3.75, 3.5, 3, 2.5 or 2G?

Its all CDMA, no Sims. The different speeds operate on different frequencies. LTE and wimax are the major 4g technologies at the moment. LTE can be Sim, but for CDMA carriers they chose to remain on CDMA instead of piggy backing on the GSM 4g networks. The only CDMA phones with SIM are worldphones that can be used outside the states where its primarily GSM tech, but while in the states the SIM doesn't do anything.

LTE at Verizon uses SIMs. It's completely separate from CDMA, which is currently used for voice on 4G phones.

-God Ginrai

 

[levi]

Do those Verizon with-SIM phones fall back to GSM 2G (aka TMDA, as above) if 4G and 3G aren't available, or does it drop back to CDMA (not using the SIM) if you haven't got the coverage? I'd assume it'd have to the latter, as TDMA coverage in the US has never been big despite a few attempts IIRC.


Seems to me even if you got a LTE module with a SIM (or an LTE+ one which the GSM classifies officially as proper 4G IIRC), you'd be limited in using it on the move as every time you dropped out of LTE range you'd fall off the network.

 

[Majin Wamu]

Does anyone have an idea of how much a monthly plan would cost?

 

[God Ginrai]

It falls back to CDMA.

EDIT: Majin Wamu, you're going to have to be more specific. Plans vary greatly depending on provider.

-God Ginrai