The head of Siemens' mobile networks business told a Finnish newspaper that he wouldn't bet on North American carriers continuing with CDMA. It may be important to note here that Siemens is an infrastructure vendor that does not make any CDMA products. Christoph Catselitz said Latin America is already moving to GSM, and North America will probably move to the rival Europe-invented standard. California-based QUALCOMM invented CDMA technology, and the company delivers nearly all the chips for the networks and handsets. The CDMA standard claims an estimated 500 million consumers, mostly located in the Americas and Asia. GSM claims nearly 1.6 billion users globally, according to the GSM Association. Catselitz did not provide a compelling reason as to why North American carriers would throw away their enormous investments in CDMA technology. Anyone?
For more on Siemens' dismissal of CDMA:
- take a look at this blog entry