General discussions : General : Did the GSM Association purposely screw (North) America?
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> Did the GSM Association purposely screw (North) America?
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On 2007-05-17 03:50:19, sanjeevjaya wrote:
Maybe you guys should apply the argument the other way round; what if the bands that North America is using for its GSM is already used by other countries for other things already?
Can someone knowledgeably post whether or not Europe and Asia allocated the following for non-GSM use: 850, 1750, 1900, 2050 MHz?
Regardless, I'm confused as to why there weren't 3 GSM-usable frequencies available to the entire world. It's still suspect that the rest of the world agreed on 3 frequencies - 900, 1800, 2100 - which just happened to be all taken up for other purposes in the US.
@BobaFett: Good discussion, indeed. I think the whole US mobile situation is a chicken-and-egg problem. Culture is a part of it - mainly the prevalence of relatively cheap computers and home Internet, as well as pagers, were an initial barrier to mobile phones. The vastness of the US is part of it - nearly all GSM carriers 10 years ago were purely regional; Cingular and T-Mobile, the only 2 GSM networks we have, are each the conglomeration of now-gone smaller carriers. And marketing is part of it - since Cingular and T-Mobile dominate US GSM, they can dictate what phones we do and don't have.
But part of that dictatorial approach is due to our differing frequencies. As said in the above discussion, I can't hardly buy any phone I please: it has to have 850 and 1900 MHz, meaning either (1) a made-for-US dual-band model, typically only available from a carrier, (2) a made-for-US tri-band model (e.g. T616 vs. T610, S710a vs. S700i), also generally carrier-exclusive, or (3) a quad-band model (somewhat hard to find, especially from
). And forget about 3G, unless I buy either whatever Cingular is pushing or a device from HTC (which have tri-mode 3G so they work worldwide).
And I believe it's the need for "made-for-US" models that limited the devices available here. Which limited the technology available to GSM users. Which limited the acceptance thereof whenever it was finally available. Which limited the devices available here... etc, etc, etc.
@ FatReg - hardly the place for such a comment
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Posted: 2007-05-17 19:18:44
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