Quote:
Originally Posted by jkim05
Internationally it's not Verizon or ATT that doesn't work properly, but rather the cellular technology. Almost all of the world operates on the GSM network like ATT and not on CDMA like Verizon.
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HSPA and HSPA+, the 3G specs that both the iPhone 3G and 3Gs, use is also a world standard. GSM and CDMA are 2G technologies, however you're right in that North America picked and backed the wrong cellular standard (CDMA) which is why our phones didn't work anywhere else. HSPA and later 4G standards will change that though as there seems to be a concensus that moving forward everyone needs to implement the same standard technology. I'm really not sure how we ended up on CDMA instead of GSM anyways. As a general rule North America is typically 1 - 2yrs behind Europe, and 2 - 3 behind Oceania and Japan, in terms of cellular tech and adoption. How we ended up implementing a different initial standard is beyond me.
That said, I'm surprised Verizon doesn't have the iPhone right now. Both Bell (and their subsiduary Virgin Mobile) and Telus offer the iPhone on their CDMA and HSPA+ networks. One would imagine the same version would work for Verizon. Especially since I can't imagine Apple letting Verizon modify the device or OS at all since that's not the Apple Way (tm).