The GSM Association is an international organization founded in 1987, dedicated to providing, developing, and overseeing the worldwide wireless standard of GSM.
CDMA, a proprietary standard designed by Qualcomm in the United States, has been the dominant network standard for North America and parts of Asia.
However, GSM networks continue to make inroads in the United States, as CDMA networks make progress in other parts of the world. There are camps on both sides that firmly believe either GSM or CDMA architecture is superior to the other.There is no universal standard for cell phone technology so these acronyms represent various digital cellular technologies.
Every cell phone carrier in the U.S. and Canada use one of these 3 technologies, all of which provide a much better sound quality than analog phones but there are also differences between these systems. It’s important to note that TDMA service providers in the U.S. and Canada have switched their technology to GSM so we now have a choice between GSM and CDMA.
In the U.S., those popular service providers use the following technologies: · AT&T Wireless = GSM ·
Cingular = GSM ·
Sprint PCS = CDMA ·
T-Mobile = GSM ·
Verizon Wireless = CDMA
GSM’s high speed wireless data technology, GPRS, usually offers a slower data bandwith for wireless data connection than CDMA’s high speed technology: 1xRTTGSM companies, though, are currently working on implementing another new technology, EDGE, which will be faster than GPRS.
There are also other differences: some CDMA cell phones usually include analog capability (especially those from Verizon), so that the phone can be used to make calls when the user is not in a digital cellular service area. But GSM phones usually don’t offer that capacity.
In Europe, this is not a problem, as digital service is available mostly everywhere, but in North-America, this is an issue for those who need to travel occasionally to the country, where digital service is rarely available.
However, GSM phones carry other advantages over CDMA. For instance, triband or biband GSM phones (those that can operate on more than one frequency band) let you use your phone in Europe and the rest of the world while you can’t do this with a CDMA phone
