Just imagine what would have happened if the FCC allowed television networks and stations decide which HDTV standard they would implement. Well that is exactly what the FCC allowed to happen with the US cellular industry. I have always considered this a mess and a detriment to the consumer; it is almost as bad as locked phones. Europe uses one standard and the coverage is significantly better than in the US because a cell phone can work with every carrier. In the US we currently have three major standards for cellular voice; iDEN (Sprint Nextel), CDMA2000 (Verizon, Sprint), GSM/UMTS (AT&T, T-Mobile). This means that even if there is cellular coverage, it does not mean that your particular cell phone can receive the signal.
We are currently in what the cellular industry calls the 3rd generation of standards. Over the last couple of years two 4th generation standards have emerged in the US, WIMAX primarily backed by Intel and Long Term Evolution (LTE) developed in cooperation with most telecommunication standards organizations around the world. Europe is already moving towards LTE, and in 2008 AT&T Wireless announced that it would start to deploy the technology in 2010. At the beginning of 2009 I was heartened to hear that Verizon and T-Mobile are also planning to implement LTE on their networks. Verizon even upstaged AT&T by promising limited deployment by the end of 2009. This leaves Sprint as the only large US cellular carrier using WIMAX.
Eighteen years after the first commercial GSM was introduced in Europe, the US consumer has some hope of extended coast to coast coverage using one cell phone. The downside is that it may take another 10 years to fully implement LTE, no thanks to the FCC.
Comments