[docgasberry]

GSM is a world wide phenomenon. While the USA was going the CDMA route. Nokia sold to the world. While Motorola was king in the USA.

Maybe BBRY got it right by selling to the world before the USA There are actually more people living outside the USA than within its borders.

But I am digressing. The US carriers couldn't certify the Z10 before the rest of the world's carriers could ....... and that is why the Z10 release is delayed in the US.

[TheStoof]

No...VZW is on CDM.

Everyone else is on GSM.

[adjdudley21]

Wow a very uninformed thread.....there are 2 carriers in the US that are not on GSM... everybody else is GSM...

[citystars41]

Sprint is CDMA

[Sqoon]

I think the real question is who cares?

Posted via CB10

[aniym]

Yet another topic twisting information (to absurd lengths) to relieve BBRY from blame for some perceived error. CDMA is not some arcane communications technology used only in the US. GSM is more popular worldwide, but the Chinese market, the single largest smartphone market right now, uses W-CDMA. In the US, GSM-based carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile and US Cellular control roughly 50 per cent of the wireless market.
Just under half of US wireless services now owned by foreign multinationals

Also, the Galaxy S3 launched on AT&T on July 6, 2012 and on Verizon on July 12, 2012. BBRY's inability to do the same doesn't appear to have anything to do with the high complexity of putting in a CDMA modem in a device as opposed to a GSM modem.

[ralfyguy]

US Cellular is CDMA as well.

[kbz1960]

US Cellular is CDMA as well.

+1

[Maddog24g]

Also, the Galaxy S3 launched on AT&T on July 6, 2012 and on Verizon on July 12, 2012. BBRY's inability to do the same doesn't appear to have anything to do with the high complexity of putting in a CDMA modem in a device as opposed to a GSM modem.

SG3 announced May 3, 2012, released outside the US May 29th and didn't get sold in the states until july. Lets stop pretending that BlackBerry is doing something that is out of the ordinary. Thwy made a decision to start selling outside the states just like samsung did, just like htc does and pretty much everyone not named aplle does.

[Balti43]

Cricket is CDMA also. It comes down to the USA always trying to be different, we as a society are stubborn and slow to change. We don't want to use the metric system and instead we use more complicated forms of measurements.

[aniym]

SG3 announced May 3, 2012, released outside the US May 29th and didn't get sold in the states until july. Lets stop pretending that BlackBerry is doing something that is out of the ordinary. Thwy made a decision to start selling outside the states just like samsung did, just like htc does and pretty much everyone not named aplle does.

I worded my sentence wrong...it looks like I was blaming BBRY for not launching simulataneously in the US, but what I meant to say was that there should be no significant difference between a US launch date of a GSM or CDMA variant of a phone, assuming they were submitted for testing at the same time. So just because the US is roughly 50% CDMA, that shouldn't mean that CDMA itself is a hindrance for the Z10.

As for Samsung's decision to launch in the US later, I believe that had to do with the fact that US carriers wanted the phone to be LTE-ready, so Samsung had to change the components from the original Samsung Exynos 4 chip (found in most international versions) to Snapdragon's Qualcomm S4, which had an LTE modem built into the chip. Samsung was also caught off guard by the volume of pre-orders (9 million from 100 carriers worldwide). AT&T also apologized for delaying their launch from June 4 (pre-orders) to June 21 to July because of shipping problems within their own supply chain. Interestingly, due to these delays, neither Verizon nor AT&T announced an official release date for the S3, just as they're doing with the Z10.

US Carriers Struggle to Meet Samsung Galaxy S3 Launch Date Due to Shipping Problems - SFGate
Samsung S3: 9 million pre-order new Galaxy phone - Telegraph

[FrankPCS]

Yet another topic twisting information (to absurd lengths) to relieve BBRY from blame for some perceived error. CDMA is not some arcane communications technology used only in the US. GSM is more popular worldwide, but the Chinese market, the single largest smartphone market right now, uses W-CDMA. In the US, GSM-based carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile and US Cellular control roughly 50 per cent of the wireless market.
Just under half of US wireless services now owned by foreign multinationals

Also, the Galaxy S3 launched on AT&T on July 6, 2012 and on Verizon on July 12, 2012. BBRY's inability to do the same doesn't appear to have anything to do with the high complexity of putting in a CDMA modem in a device as opposed to a GSM modem.

Isnt WCDMA more related to GSM? Although it may share the CDMA functions, it is not compatible with the upgrade path of a CDMA2000 network. CDMA went EV-DO and GSM went WCDMA. Anyhow outside NA, i believe in general, a lot of Asian countries have pretty sizeable CDMA networks.

[kg4icg]

Something to ponder. The world's largest phone market called China is mostly CDMA, not GSM. There are at least 40 carriers in the world who have a CDMA network, it isn't just a US thing so this thread makes no since.

[toujours_frais]

********* America
image.jpg

[ralfyguy]

The funny thing is that on any american brand cars, every bolt is metric. Military uses metric, law enforcement uses metric, hospitals use metric measurements. But comimg from the metric system I have to say the american standard system IS horribly complicated with fractions and stuff, not just because that's what I'm used to.
There is a reason why nobody else uses it...

BTW, that is also the reason why Harley's constantly fall apart with shaking bolts loose. The standard bolts have a pitch that is way more coarse than metric, and that will aid the loosening.

[raysgrumpy]

The funny thing is that on any american brand cars, every bolt is metric. Military uses metric, law enforcement uses metric, hospitals use metric measurements. But comimg from the metric system I have to say the american standard system IS horribly complicated with fractions and stuff, not just because that's what I'm used to.
There is a reason why nobody else uses it...

BTW, that is also the reason why Harley's constantly fall apart with shaking bolts loose. The standard bolts have a pitch that is way more coarse than metric, and that will aid the loosening.

Interesting. I don't ride motorcycles, but I have never heard of Harley's falling apart because of bolts shaking loose. Care to let us know where you got this data?

[Cozz4ever]

The funny thing is that on any american brand cars, every bolt is metric. Military uses metric, law enforcement uses metric, hospitals use metric measurements. But comimg from the metric system I have to say the american standard system IS horribly complicated with fractions and stuff, not just because that's what I'm used to.
There is a reason why nobody else uses it...

BTW, that is also the reason why Harley's constantly fall apart with shaking bolts loose. The standard bolts have a pitch that is way more coarse than metric, and that will aid the loosening.

Actually, there's really no such thing as an "American brand" car. Everything is built everywhere in the world. Some ford blocks are made in Germany. Some HVAC units in GM's are made in Portugal so sticking to the metric system is easier overall because America uses both systems while the rest of the world mostly uses just one. And still, yet not every bolt is metric.

Also, Harley's don't fall apart with shaking bolts because it's SAE. You're full of crap. For that, the majority of American built planes would be falling from the sky since it's SAE and not metric.

[grahamf]

Also, Harley's don't fall apart with shaking bolts because it's SAE. You're full of crap. For that, the majority of American built planes would be falling from the sky since it's SAE and not metric.

American plans also follow an intensive maintenance regimen.

[docgasberry]

Wow a very uninformed thread.....there are 2 carriers in the US that are not on GSM... everybody else is GSM...

Really? Educate us.

My point being; a GSM phone and a CDMA (or whatever terminology is appropriate now) may differs significantly in the testing procedures for carriers. And maybe this accounts for the lengthy testing issues faced by the American carriers ... Maybe, being a common protocol (GSM), a GSM phone can be rolled out worldwide without country specific tests other than making some software specific changes. Like screensavers

Nokia was BIG in the world outside the US when Motorola and Qualcomm was dominating the US market. Remember those days before the arrival of SIM cards on GSM and number portability? Taking a page from the past (though not exactly with similar conditions), it may be easier to sell to the world before the US.

[SwitchBeach]

Why would CDMA testing affect AT&T and TMobile (which are "American carriers") releasing the device in the US?

The premise of the posts by the OP make no sense.

[BB.David]

Really? Educate us.

My point being; a GSM phone and a CDMA (or whatever terminology is appropriate now) may differs significantly in the testing procedures for carriers. And maybe this accounts for the lengthy testing issues faced by the American carriers .

So you're saying the reason for the delay is because of CDMA testing? If this was the case, AT&T and T-Mobile, who do NOT use CDMA technology, would have the Z10 by now.

[docgasberry]

Take a look here;

Texting Problem Between Verizon CDMA Phone and European GSM Phone

I think it is still apparent that CDMA has compatibility issues with GSM networks. I used to have a CDMA phone and moved to a GSM network. Those days of CDMA, I was still carrying a pager because texting wasn't available on CDMA; it came with GSM.

[docgasberry]

Why would CDMA testing affect AT&T and TMobile (which are "American carriers") releasing the device in the US?

The premise of the posts by the OP make no sense.

I don't know. I am merely postulating. What do you think is causing the delay for the Z10 launch in the US?

[filmgirl]

Really? Educate us.

My point being; a GSM phone and a CDMA (or whatever terminology is appropriate now) may differs significantly in the testing procedures for carriers. And maybe this accounts for the lengthy testing issues faced by the American carriers ... Maybe, being a common protocol (GSM), a GSM phone can be rolled out worldwide without country specific tests other than making some software specific changes. Like screensavers

Nokia was BIG in the world outside the US when Motorola and Qualcomm was dominating the US market. Remember those days before the arrival of SIM cards on GSM and number portability? Taking a page from the past (though not exactly with similar conditions), it may be easier to sell to the world before the US.

This is actually less true with the advent of LTE.

So LTE bands are far more diverse than GSM bands were. You can provision a radio with several bands to support but you still need to make several variants of a phone to work in different parts of the world.

And while Sprint and Verizon are CDMA (and to be clear, US Cellular, Cricket, MetroPCS, Virgin Mobile and Boost are all CDMA too but only because they are MVNOs of Sprint, meaning they rent Sprint's spectrum), they are both in the process of converting to LTE (Verizon is furthest along). My Verizon iPhone 5 is LTE for Verizon and can fall back to CDMA but it is SIM unlocked and can be used with HSPA+ all over the world (I just used it in Paris, Spain and Amsterdam this week).

Getting a quad-band radio chipset for a phone isn't a problem, especially if you're targeting a very large customer base (Verizon).

Having said that, while carrier testing can be a *****, I tend to put the onus of that on BlackBerry and not fully blame the carriers. Ask yourself this, why does Apple never have any delays because of carrier testing? Answer: They do all their testing in-house. They've actually built carrier testing labs for each phone carrier in their facilities and they test internally and pass carrier certification without it ever having to go to the carrier. Is this expensive? Yes. Should BlackBerry have started doing this back when Verizon delayed the release of the Storm and Storm 2? YES.

I truly don't understand why other companies don't invest in their own carrier testing labs.

Another clarification, American carriers are always pickier about what they let on their network than European carriers. They just are. Part of it is that data use tends to be higher, another part is the you've got a substantially larger physical area to cover and that can complicate testing. Regardless, the delays are absolutely not associated with the radio technology. U.S. carriers are slow. That's why you either submit early or you do it in-house.

More to the point about the GSM/CDMA thing, the Verizon Z10 will be a different model than the T-Mobile and AT&T model but I can almost bet the T-Mo/AT&T will just be the same as the Canadian LTE model. T-Mobile uses a different 3G channel but when the AT&T/T-Mo merger was cancelled, it won access to AT&T's spectrum (both for HSPA+ and LTE) in many markets.

The BlackBerry Z10 I got at the NYC launch works on AT&T (I got a prepaid SIM as I'm a Verizon customer) and our review unit that we got in advance of the launch actually came with an AT&T SIM. Making one extra variant for a carrier that has three times the subscribers as the Canadian population shouldn't be that big of a deal and it's not fair to shift the onus onto others just because BlackBerry can't get its siht together and actually execute a strategy on time. Bottom line, the software wasn't ready until the last minute and that delayed their carrier testing times. That's BlackBerry's fault -- not Verizon or AT&Ts.

[docgasberry]

This is a very informative article. And may provide some insight into the technical issues of integrating GSM and CDMA networks. Especially on the issue of "unlocked" phones

CDMA vs. GSM: What's the Difference? | News & Opinion | PCMag.com