Posted: 3/24/2015 12:46:44 PM EDT
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So I'm looking to finally get a smartphone, and I have narrowed it down to model, but now I must choose GSM or CDMA.
My plan is to use one of the pre paid services with "bring your own phone" SIM cards. Which network do they generally use? |
| Depends on the service in your area. GSM doesn't work well inside buildings unless you are close to the tower. CDMA penetrates better but you have less options when it comes to buying your own phone and using it on any CDMA provider. Get the one that has the best coverage in the area you are going to use it the most. |
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When I got my iPhone 6 I went with the GSM+CDMA Verizon world phone. I can use any GSM carrier I want, and I can also use CDMA but I'm limited to Verizon, which is fine because they are the only decent CDMA carrier anyways. verizon doesn't lock their phones anymore no one does, since carriers stopped subsidizing the phones from the manufacturers. |
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Quoted: verizon doesn't lock their phones anymore no one does, since carriers stopped subsidizing the phones from the manufacturers. Quoted: Quoted: When I got my iPhone 6 I went with the GSM+CDMA Verizon world phone. I can use any GSM carrier I want, and I can also use CDMA but I'm limited to Verizon, which is fine because they are the only decent CDMA carrier anyways. verizon doesn't lock their phones anymore no one does, since carriers stopped subsidizing the phones from the manufacturers. All of our iphone 6's support ALLTHETHINGS! Which is nice, I can pop any SIM in mine and go with another carrier, since we're not on any contract... other than the no-interest payment plan for the phone itself. But that's just a way to buy the hardware without having to drop $850 at once, with 0% interest. |
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Quoted: So I'm looking to finally get a smartphone, and I have narrowed it down to model, but now I must choose GSM or CDMA. My plan is to use one of the pre paid services with "bring your own phone" SIM cards. Which network do they generally use? Recommend that you provide the following info: - Provider - Phone model |
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Anecdotal evidence: My phone (Samsung Galaxy 5) is Verizon (CDMA) and my brother in law's Samsung Note is on AT&T which is GSM.
We were at the hospital (deep in the emergency room) with my mother in law. My phone was getting a (weak) signal while his wasn't getting any signal at all. |
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Recommend that you provide the following info: - Provider Unlocked - Phone model IPhone 4s Quoted:
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So I'm looking to finally get a smartphone, and I have narrowed it down to model, but now I must choose GSM or CDMA. My plan is to use one of the pre paid services with "bring your own phone" SIM cards. Which network do they generally use? - Provider Unlocked - Phone model IPhone 4s |
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You'll want something that is compatible with AT&T and/or T-Mobile's network but it's a little more complicated than GSM because there are different frequencies and LTE standards between the two networks. I'm not fully update to date on cell tech but I know when the Galaxy Note II came out the "World" model was compatible with AT&T and T-Mobil but it only supported 3G data.  Edit: If you want something like a iToy or high end Android buy it for the specific network you are going to use it on if you want to get the most out of it. |
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I'm not fully update to date on cell tech but I know when the Galaxy Note II came out the "World" model was compatible with AT&T and T-Mobil but it only supported 3G data.
The pre-10 Blackberry devices had that issue as well, but all the BB10 devices now fully support 4G on AT&T/T-Mobile. I'd have to think that the Android devices are at least as up-to-speed. |
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You'll want something that is compatible with AT&T and/or T-Mobile's network but it's a little more complicated than GSM because there are different frequencies and LTE standards between the two networks. I'm not fully update to date on cell tech but I know when the Galaxy Note II came out the "World" model was compatible with AT&T and T-Mobil but it only supported 3G data.
Edit: If you want something like a iToy or high end Android buy it for the specific network you are going to use it on if you want to get the most out of it. Not worried about that, my primary web surfing tool is a laptop, that's what it's for, not my cell phone. |
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Quoted: Not worried about that, my primary web surfing tool is a laptop, that's what it's for, not my cell phone. Quoted: Quoted: You'll want something that is compatible with AT&T and/or T-Mobile's network but it's a little more complicated than GSM because there are different frequencies and LTE standards between the two networks. I'm not fully update to date on cell tech but I know when the Galaxy Note II came out the "World" model was compatible with AT&T and T-Mobil but it only supported 3G data. Edit: If you want something like a iToy or high end Android buy it for the specific network you are going to use it on if you want to get the most out of it. Not worried about that, my primary web surfing tool is a laptop, that's what it's for, not my cell phone. How do you get data on your laptop when not in the office or at an airport or hotel that doesn't offer free wifi. 
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How do you get data on your laptop when not in the office or at an airport or hotel that doesn't offer free wifi. Quoted:
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You'll want something that is compatible with AT&T and/or T-Mobile's network but it's a little more complicated than GSM because there are different frequencies and LTE standards between the two networks. I'm not fully update to date on cell tech but I know when the Galaxy Note II came out the "World" model was compatible with AT&T and T-Mobil but it only supported 3G data.
Edit: If you want something like a iToy or high end Android buy it for the specific network you are going to use it on if you want to get the most out of it. Not worried about that, my primary web surfing tool is a laptop, that's what it's for, not my cell phone. How do you get data on your laptop when not in the office or at an airport or hotel that doesn't offer free wifi. Easy, I tend not to go anywhere regularly that has no free WiFi.  When I do... that is what the phones for, but that is infrequent enough that 3G wouldn't bother me much.
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verizon doesn't lock their phones anymore no one does, since carriers stopped subsidizing the phones from the manufacturers. Quoted:
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When I got my iPhone 6 I went with the GSM+CDMA Verizon world phone. I can use any GSM carrier I want, and I can also use CDMA but I'm limited to Verizon, which is fine because they are the only decent CDMA carrier anyways. verizon doesn't lock their phones anymore no one does, since carriers stopped subsidizing the phones from the manufacturers. I didn't know that, cool. 
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CDMA penetrates walls better IIRC. GSM is good if you're in the open. Old wives tales.... it's the frequency, not the encoding that affects wall penetration. The reason why you observe better penetration with CDMA than GSM is that CDMA is likely using the older frequencies auctioned off long time ago. These are the block A and B auctions in the 800mhz range. Also, walls absorb and reflect more than glass. So it is possible to see a GSM based service penetrate better than a CDMA if the GSM has to go through glass, and the CDMA through walls. What the FCC needs to do is move out TV broadcasters from 600 and 700Mhz range and start to auction off those to cellular and broadband providers. TV broadcasters waste bandwidth compared to broadband providers. Government wastes the most with government reserved frequencies. Use a portion of the 600Mz, and 1200Mz for WiFi ULB so that we'll have 600Mz, 1.2Ghz, and 2.4Ghz in the future, and limited 5Ghz due to issues with radar. No one is close to efficient use of RF as WiFi.... it's not a race unless you count monthly subscription revenue (don't laugh as some companies have proposed to the FCC to collect royalties from WiFi sales for ongoing RF access). |
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For what it's worth, this phone works fine on the AT&T network via StraightTalk:
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-Moto-Universal-Unlocked-Black/dp/B00K0NRZSW |
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Quoted: CDMA penetrates walls better IIRC. GSM is good if you're in the open.  Type of technology is not the same as what band. Gsm can be 850, 1900 CDMA can be 700, 850, 1700/1900 Working for the last 20 years as a cell tech I have noticed 700 and 850 has better in building penetration than 1900. FYI GSM is soon to go away. |
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Quoted: verizon doesn't lock their phones anymore no one does, since carriers stopped subsidizing the phones from the manufacturers. Quoted: Quoted: When I got my iPhone 6 I went with the GSM+CDMA Verizon world phone. I can use any GSM carrier I want, and I can also use CDMA but I'm limited to Verizon, which is fine because they are the only decent CDMA carrier anyways. verizon doesn't lock their phones anymore no one does, since carriers stopped subsidizing the phones from the manufacturers. Global phones from Verizon have always been a mixed bag, some always come unlocked, others are almost impossible to unlock for use on a US Carrier (much less important these days than it used to be, as Verizon doesn't sell many non LTE phones anymore). Verizon doesn't lock their LTE prepaid phones, but they do prohibit their use on MVNOs, those are the prepaid carriers that use the Verizon network. Since Verizon began allowing MVNOs to sell LTE people have had good luck with using Verizon Prepaid LTE phones on the MVNO carriers, but others haven't been able to, and Verizon reserves the right to sweep the databases and shutdown phones that they don't allow. |
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Yes, everybody is still subsidy locking their phones. Verizon isn't allowed to lock LTE phones, that was part of a deal they made as part of a deal to get their hands on a bunch of spectrum that they wanted. AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile all still lock their phones, as well as most MVNO providers. Global phones from Verizon have always been a mixed bag, some always come unlocked, others are almost impossible to unlock for use on a US Carrier (much less important these days than it used to be, as Verizon doesn't sell many non LTE phones anymore). Verizon doesn't lock their LTE prepaid phones, but they do prohibit their use on MVNOs, those are the prepaid carriers that use the Verizon network. Since Verizon began allowing MVNOs to sell LTE people have had good luck with using Verizon Prepaid LTE phones on the MVNO carriers, but others haven't been able to, and Verizon reserves the right to sweep the databases and shutdown phones that they don't allow. Quoted:
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When I got my iPhone 6 I went with the GSM+CDMA Verizon world phone. I can use any GSM carrier I want, and I can also use CDMA but I'm limited to Verizon, which is fine because they are the only decent CDMA carrier anyways. verizon doesn't lock their phones anymore no one does, since carriers stopped subsidizing the phones from the manufacturers. Global phones from Verizon have always been a mixed bag, some always come unlocked, others are almost impossible to unlock for use on a US Carrier (much less important these days than it used to be, as Verizon doesn't sell many non LTE phones anymore). Verizon doesn't lock their LTE prepaid phones, but they do prohibit their use on MVNOs, those are the prepaid carriers that use the Verizon network. Since Verizon began allowing MVNOs to sell LTE people have had good luck with using Verizon Prepaid LTE phones on the MVNO carriers, but others haven't been able to, and Verizon reserves the right to sweep the databases and shutdown phones that they don't allow. I had an LTE phone from them before, that I paid cash for, it was locked and they refused to unlock it, they also refused to sell me a plan unless I paid for the phone via the bill (like if it was "free" like what you get if you sign up, but you actually pay an increased amount on your bill to pay for it.), never mind that I ALREADY paid for the phone, in full. It was an HTC Evo 4G LTE. |
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Type of technology is not the same as what band. Gsm can be 850, 1900 CDMA can be 700, 850, 1700/1900 Working for the last 20 years as a cell tech I have noticed 700 and 850 has better in building penetration than 1900. FYI GSM is soon to go away. Quoted:
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CDMA penetrates walls better IIRC. GSM is good if you're in the open.
Type of technology is not the same as what band. Gsm can be 850, 1900 CDMA can be 700, 850, 1700/1900 Working for the last 20 years as a cell tech I have noticed 700 and 850 has better in building penetration than 1900. FYI GSM is soon to go away. CDMA is going by the wayside in the future also.. UMTS is the new standard The lower bands (700 / 850 ) have better coverage than the higher bands (1700 / 1900) due to the physics involved in the way radio waves propagate.. (also a cell tech not quite 20 years though... im going on 8) |
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Quoted: I had an LTE phone from them before, that I paid cash for, it was locked and they refused to unlock it, they also refused to sell me a plan unless I paid for the phone via the bill (like if it was "free" like what you get if you sign up, but you actually pay an increased amount on your bill to pay for it.), never mind that I ALREADY paid for the phone, in full. It was an HTC Evo 4G LTE. |
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Quoted: CDMA is going by the wayside in the future also.. UMTS is the new standard The lower bands (700 / 850 ) have better coverage than the higher bands (1700 / 1900) due to the physics involved in the way radio waves propagate.. (also a cell tech not quite 20 years though... im going on 8) Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: CDMA penetrates walls better IIRC. GSM is good if you're in the open. Type of technology is not the same as what band. Gsm can be 850, 1900 CDMA can be 700, 850, 1700/1900 Working for the last 20 years as a cell tech I have noticed 700 and 850 has better in building penetration than 1900. FYI GSM is soon to go away. CDMA is going by the wayside in the future also.. UMTS is the new standard The lower bands (700 / 850 ) have better coverage than the higher bands (1700 / 1900) due to the physics involved in the way radio waves propagate.. (also a cell tech not quite 20 years though... im going on 8) |
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Type of technology is not the same as what band. Gsm can be 850, 1900 CDMA can be 700, 850, 1700/1900 Working for the last 20 years as a cell tech I have noticed 700 and 850 has better in building penetration than 1900. FYI GSM is soon to go away. Quoted:
Quoted:
CDMA penetrates walls better IIRC. GSM is good if you're in the open.
Type of technology is not the same as what band. Gsm can be 850, 1900 CDMA can be 700, 850, 1700/1900 Working for the last 20 years as a cell tech I have noticed 700 and 850 has better in building penetration than 1900. FYI GSM is soon to go away. Tell me more about this. |
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CDMA (Verizon uses this) seems to have better range.
I use tracfones, and they suck where I work. No signal at all in my workplace. Switched phones, got one that uses CDMA. I found out that the tracfone models that end in G are GDM, so easy to avoid those. Their new smart phones don't follow that labeling, so you need to do research on what that particular phone model uses. GDM is cheaper for tracphone, so if you are using GDM, and hang up with X number of seconds within an answer, you don't get charged. If you have CDMA, they'll charge you. Or so I've read. |
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I believe that the HTC Evo 4G was a Sprint Exclusive, and Sprint has always had some very weird rules about phones on their network. Verizon has fairly plain rules, if you want Verizon service, you buy one of their phones, they do not make exceptions. Until recently a few of their MVNO carriers could add non Verizon phones, but that ended a couple of months ago. Quoted:
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I had an LTE phone from them before, that I paid cash for, it was locked and they refused to unlock it, they also refused to sell me a plan unless I paid for the phone via the bill (like if it was "free" like what you get if you sign up, but you actually pay an increased amount on your bill to pay for it.), never mind that I ALREADY paid for the phone, in full. It was an HTC Evo 4G LTE. I bought it at the Verizon store. The problem was not that they refused to activate it, they had no problem doing that, it was what they wanted to charge. It goes like this, if I had signed up for a plan out of the gate instead of buying the phone first (with the intention of using it on WiFi only, sort of like a little tablet, which I did, successfully) I would have gotten the phone for free, then just payed for the plan, the cost of the phone being paid for over the coarse of the plan. However I purchased my phone first, I.E. it was fully paid for, I owned it outright, but when I tried to activate it they wanted the same monthly payment as if I didn't already own the phone, I.E. instead of getting the phone for free, I would be out what I paid for it. |
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Anecdotal evidence: My phone (Samsung Galaxy 5) is Verizon (CDMA) and my brother in law's Samsung Note is on AT&T which is GSM. We were at the hospital (deep in the emergency room) with my mother in law. My phone was getting a (weak) signal while his wasn't getting any signal at all. there are too many factors at play here to come to ANY sort of conclusion, at all, about anything. example 1: AT&T tower was farther away than the VZ tower. example 2: AT&T tower was in fact closer than the VZ tower, but in a direction which required the signal to pass through more of the building structure. example 3: RF noise from medical equipment in the ER was affecting one phone more than the other. and so on... ar-jedi |
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Quoted: When I got my iPhone 6 I went with the GSM+CDMA Verizon world phone. I can use any GSM carrier I want, and I can also use CDMA but I'm limited to Verizon, which is fine because they are the only decent CDMA carrier anyways. The Verizon phone is not the world phone with the iPhone 6. The SIM Free model supports more LTE bands than the AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile model, and they are whitelisted out of the box for both Verizon and Sprint. |
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Type of technology is not the same as what band. Gsm can be 850, 1900 CDMA can be 700, 850, 1700/1900 Working for the last 20 years as a cell tech I have noticed 700 and 850 has better in building penetration than 1900. FYI GSM is soon to go away. Quoted:
Quoted:
CDMA penetrates walls better IIRC. GSM is good if you're in the open.
Type of technology is not the same as what band. Gsm can be 850, 1900 CDMA can be 700, 850, 1700/1900 Working for the last 20 years as a cell tech I have noticed 700 and 850 has better in building penetration than 1900. FYI GSM is soon to go away. Lower frequencies will essentially always penetrate obstacles better than higher frequencies. |
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CDMA (Verizon uses this) seems to have better range. I use tracfones, and they suck where I work. No signal at all in my workplace. Switched phones, got one that uses CDMA. I found out that the tracfone models that end in G are GDM, so easy to avoid those. Their new smart phones don't follow that labeling, so you need to do research on what that particular phone model uses. GDM is cheaper for tracphone, so if you are using GDM, and hang up with X number of seconds within an answer, you don't get charged. If you have CDMA, they'll charge you. Or so I've read. All of Tracfone's Android phones are Verizon. Also, Tracfone is doing some beta testing with LTE on their Android phones. I've got a BYOP with LTE that is currently working on Tracfone. The speed is limited (usually no more than 5 mbps) but for my habits, that's fine. I don't use a lot of data. In my area, Verizon seems to have the best coverage, particularly inside. I think AT&T (GSM) is also good, but it's not good enough to warrant me switching to AT&T. I used to use a Sprint MVNO, but the reception inside was almost nil, and around my area, it often got only 3G. Other places it got 4G, but compared to Verizon, which is 4G almost everywhere, well, there is no contest. You go with whatever gives you the best reception where you live and work. This site Sensorly.com will give you an idea what kind of reception people get in your area. (I don't completely trust the carriers' maps, they often claim they have a strong signal where they really don't.) |