Dennis Ferguson wrote:

> This is kind of beside the point since neither a high-power GSM nor a
> CDMA handset is likely to do much good talking to a normal tower. If
> the base station radio designer thinks all handset radios transmit at
> 200 mW then there's no use having the base station transmit much more
> than 200 mW back at the handsets; if the tower can hear the handset at
> that power then the handset will hear the tower. You need base stationss
> to match the handsets.

Well it's a virtual certainty that every AMPS tower also has CDMA or GSM
on it, plus there's a lot of towers that are CDMA or GSM only.

The very fact that it many locations a GSM or CDMA phone can't get a
digital signal, but an AMPS-capable phone can make and receive calls,
means that AMPS has some advantage even with low power handsets. There
are vast areas in California, including some in the San Francisco Bay
Area counties, where AMPS is the only service you can pick up with a
regular low power tri-mode CDMA/AMPS handset, and where there is no GSM
coverage at all.

> So all that's required is the deployment of a bunch of new stuff
> and everything will be fine with digital phones. We're back around
> to the original point: is there enough use in rural areas to support
> any of this?

Look at the mess in Australia. They put in CDMA to cover the outback,
instead of AMPS, since GSM didn't have the range. Then they decided that
they'll do W-CDMA in the outback and try to do one nationwide network,
GSM for urban voice, W-CDMA for urban data, and rural voice. The CDMA
sites in the outback could reach 120km in all directions. Presumably
W-CDMA will be just as good. Eventually everything will be one version
of CDMA or another, and even the voice in urban areas will be carried
over the W-CDMA network.

All this rigmarole when the European carriers would have loved to go to
CDMA in the first place, but their governments wouldn't let them.