I was helping the GF's mom pick a new phone this weekend. She wants to go VZ because she believes that they have good coverage at her office.
I was really disturbed by the few models and high prices for the hardware as compared to AT&T or T-Mo. Do you think that this is caused by the CDMA (US only) that VZ uses as opposed to the GSM (Global) standard used by the other two? Is this why VZ is moving to LTE for 4G - better handsets at lower prices?

@rexplex: Verizon has high prices because it claims to have a better network, and in certain circumstances, especially in the Northeast, the boasts are totally founded. It charges high prices because it can, not because of some technical issue. Switching to LTE will solve two larger issues: the ability to roam globally with a single technology component, and access to cool products from Europe and America's GSM side as they hit the market, rather than after a 6- to 18-month period of retooling for CDMA, a la BlackBerry Pearl.

@rexplex: Be sure to read Charlie's post on Consumer Reports rating of the cell carriers. Verizon and T-Mo come out on top.

@rexplex: CDMA isn't US-only. Also, the few models and high prices are 100% Verizon's fault- go look at Korea/Japan for examples of what CDMA's *really* capable of (and notice that Sony Ericsson makes top-notch Japanese CDMA phones- the W52S for one, while they pulled out of America entirely- wonder why?).

Rexplex - Most of the reason why VZW is moving to LTE is because of Vodaphone in Europe. In a nutshell, Vodaphone seems to have quite a bit of control of big red, and all but demanded they switch to GSM to keep their strategic partnership alive.

Wilson is 100% correct that the higher prices are only because they can get away with it. Switching to LTE will allow them to use more Nokia devices which is why I'm a little confused about the last line in the article. Nokia is applauding the move BECAUSE of how few devices they've had with verizon. By switching to LTE, Nokia can now have access to 61 million potential new customers with no effort to manufacture new devices on their part.

You don't see many Nokia phones on Verizon because Nokia is very, very GSM-Centric. As of June 2006, Nokia has more or less killed CDMA development.

Sure Nokia is happy. They hope so sell all the hardware for the new G4 network. The handsets are just a little piece of the action.

Actually, Nokia doesn't develop CDMA phones because of their beef with Qualcomm. Google "Nokia CDMA" and you'll find a bunch of lawsuits, etc. with Qualcomm.

That said, Verizon charges a premium for their hardware because of their walled garden.

You can use any hardware, as long as it's ours; you can run any OS, as long as it's ours; you can use any software, as long as you acquired it from us.

well I think CDMA had about 400 Million customers world wide, while GSM had 2.5 billion customers, so yes there's no wonder if the number of models are better for the GSM carriers..

They seem to be still be doing CDMA in China. Of course, we all know how Intellectual Property laws are in China...

CDMA is also done in Japan and Korea.

But we all know how backwards they are when it comes to cell phone tech.