1. FF22's Avatar
    Maybe this should be in the Verizon forum but I'm comfortable in the Priv/Android world and the Verizon forum can be poorly attended!

    This came up in another thread where it was mentioned that Verizon will be phasing out cdma in the near future, next few years(?), decades(?) or SOON (trademark)

    Will the end of cdma change Verizon's pretty reasonable coverage in places like Sedona, Arizona and other more remote desert southwest locations? I recently was in Sedona, Arizona with both a Verizon Priv and a T-mobile equipped ShopBB Priv. The Verizon had better coverage. In addition, staff at the resort mentioned Verizon was much better than T-mobile and AT&T at the resort and around town. At a trailhead where our party was to split and might need to contact each other by phone, a trail volunteer noted that coverage might be spotty but that only Verizon had a chance of working.

    So the question is, is Verizon's good coverage based on the type of signal (cdma versus gsm) as opposed to how many towers they might have in an area? Does cdma travel further or deal with obstacles better?

    (in response to my initial question, someone mentioned that Verizon's analog was even better and I do recall that it worked much better when I was in the mountains before they finally ditched analog (and I had to ditch my analog phone).

    So, will the Tech Wizards chime in? And if I'm misinterpreting how signals, distance, protocols work - please feel free to correct me.

    Thanks in advance.
    12-06-16 12:32 PM
  2. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    It's mainly is just coverage. Verizon was first to really start expanding and consolidating, they bought a number of smaller carriers. Many of these were rural regional carriers My provider for years was Alltel Wireless (as Nextel didn't grow their coverage), but Verizon bought out much of Alltel's market, and I've been with Verizon since.
    12-06-16 01:15 PM
  3. Ment's Avatar
    If Verizon has B13(700Mhz) band in those areas then there should be no difference. The reason Verizon CDMA coverage was/is so good it that CDMA BC0 (800Mhz) had alot of coverage. The 700Mhz LTE bands now in use use to be UHF channels 52 through 69 which went away with HDTV and were later sold off in 2008 for cellular bands. The lower frequency bands have better coverage especially thru buildings which is why Tmobile used to have horrible signal in buildings until their 700Mhz Band12 got put up.

    The reason why other carriers may not have good coverage in rural/remote areas is because the towers are older and don't have 700Mhz band coverage.
    12-06-16 01:18 PM
  4. Carl Estes's Avatar
    More cell towers = better coverage.
    Whether it's CDMA or GSM if you can't get a signal, it won't work to well. I heard it was going to take about 2 years for them to morph into the GSM world, and and they are in the process now. They will still "support" the CDMA devices out there for a while, but like the Cable Companies conversion to digital tv bits, at some point, some folks will be forced into "upgrading" to GSM devices. (no cheesy little converter boxes will do!!!) LOL
    12-06-16 01:19 PM
  5. misterabrasive's Avatar
    It's mainly is just coverage. Verizon was first to really start expanding and consolidating, they bought a number of smaller carriers. Many of these were rural regional carriers My provider for years was Alltel Wireless (as Nextel didn't grow their coverage), but Verizon bought out much of Alltel's market, and I've been with Verizon since.
    Same here. Alltel to Verizon.
    12-06-16 01:47 PM
  6. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    More cell towers = better coverage.
    Whether it's CDMA or GSM if you can't get a signal, it won't work to well. I heard it was going to take about 2 years for them to morph into the GSM world, and and they are in the process now. They will still "support" the CDMA devices out there for a while, but like the Cable Companies conversion to digital tv bits, at some point, some folks will be forced into "upgrading" to GSM devices. (no cheesy little converter boxes will do!!!) LOL
    Upgrade to GSM, or just to LTE only devices?

    I think LTE will be what most everyone will be using down the road. But you'll still have the problem of which bands does your carrier have and which bands does your phone have.
    12-06-16 01:58 PM
  7. rotorwrench's Avatar
    I was trying to find out the answer to this myself several years ago because we were moving out of the valley into the mountains. We were with AT&T at the time and couldn't understand why we got such a poor signal, to non-existant at our new site when the guys doing some excavation for us were on VZW and getting decent signals, yet the AT&T tower was much closer. Doing some research and talking to a buddy in our church who's a cell tower tech for AT&T, I found out that CDMA signals are actually stronger signals and don't degrade with distance as much as GSM signals. So I read and was told. There are several cell tech sites covering it.

    The fact remains, where I live, even with closer GSM towers available, VZW (CDMA) signal strength is much better. GSM is virtually unusable where I'm at. Based on everything I've read and been told, it's signal, not tower proximity that makes CDMA reception better than GSM.

    Read this excellent and very detailed post done by a moderator on another forum

    http://androidforums.com/threads/why...han-gsm.82363/
    FF22 likes this.
    12-06-16 02:03 PM
  8. Wezard's Avatar
    The Verizon Priv supports LTE band 13@700, and band 20@800, so if Verizon is actually deploying this, coverage should be good.
    12-06-16 04:38 PM

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