Steve Sobol wrote:
> Donald Newcomb wrote:
>
>> For anyone familiar with GSM this is a stupid solution. Just give me a SIM
>> and forget your stupid hybrid phone. But my understanding is that this is
>> the only way that Verizon will let you get GSM roaming. Stupid and
>> expensive. Too bad because their GSM roaming is pretty good, for a US
>> carrier.
>
> Well, most people don't choose a carrier because of which technology they
> use.
Not directly, but it does have an indirect effect.
Look at Verizon's extremely low churn rate compared to the other
carriers. The reasons for this are the two networks they operate enable
them to provide superior coverage to other carriers. Even though Sprint
is also
CDMA, Sprint is all at 1900 Mhz which is less desirable than
Verizon's mainly 800 Mhz network. Every survey and study backs up the
fact that Verizon has the best coverage, and other surveys show that
coverage is the deciding factor for more people than any other factor
(not a majority, but more than any other factor).
Look at how well Sprint and Verizon are doing in high speed data, and
how poorly Cingular is doing. The reasons for this are inherent to the
technology that each uses. By the time Cingular catches up with Sprint
and Verizon in terms of geographic coverage, Sprint and Verizon will
have upgraded their data network to be several times faster than
Cingular's first generation
HSDPA network.
There are users that choose a carrier based on technology. Cingular has
a big advantage for business people that travel to Europe or most of
Asia, and that can't be bothered with extra handsets, and buying prepaid
SIM cards in order to keep costs down.
I don't have T-Mobile coverage where I live, so it was never a carrier I
considered, after having service but no coverage on the network that
they now operate.
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