At 30 Nov 2007 16:58:07 -0800 vic.healey wrote:

> Did you see that Verizon is throwing in
> the towel and planing to switch to GSM?


Gee, from your understanding of cellular, I'm guessing you must be another
"pen name" of our pal Oxford.

No, Verizon isn't "switching to GSM." They are planning to use the same 4G
system as Vodaphone, the European GSM carrier that owns 45% of Verizon
Wireless. The goa I assume, will be to allow data/voice interoperability
between future US CDMA 4G phones and European GSM 4G phones, similar to how
current Japanese wireless companies use WCDMA 3G data at 2100MHz on their
non-GSM system, allowing GSM interoperability with GSM 3G phones (at least
on that one band.)

Old news if you read the trades- this plan was leaked by Voda a month or so
ago, IIRC.