Banu, Charlie, this is indeed intended to be a US-centric piece. Globally, WCDMA will continue to dominate EV-DO 2:1 for the foreseeable future. In the US, while Cingular got a head-start, its UMTS deployement was largely ceremonial to accomodate their agreement with DoCoMo. CDMA carriers particularly Verizon got off a good start and thus are dominating the 3G landscape.

Jogo, Cingular’s UMTS/HSDPA deployment is in 52 markets per their 3Q Earnings release and other public statements.

Laina, you are right WiMAX does enter into the equation but EV-DO clearly remains the focus, particularly when Sprint is trying to migrate its Nextel subscribers on to its CDMA network. Though we don’t know what 4G will eventually look like, it is clear that it will represent a combination of OFDMA and WiFi and other cellular technologies/functionalities.

Also, the chart is about subscriber penetration and not coverage penetration.

Jesse, you are right, in the end, it is rarely about the technology, it is about the services and how they are offered to the customers. DoCoMo executed brilliantly on this strategy and profited.

Also, isn’t LA area considered one major metro market versus small components of that market, like say Bakersville. I am a little confused about how they count.

Cingular currently has UMTS/HSDPA in 137 major markets. A quick Google news search could tell you that. If you concede that the competing 3G coverage maps will be equivalent for 95% of the pop by Q207 then claiming that Ev-do will dominate until “at least 2010″ is a baffling assumption.

No, you got it wrong.

Out of the 134 markets — only 50 of them are major.

http://cingular.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=1746

Cingular currently has UMTS/HSDPA in 137 major markets. A quick Google news search could tell you that. If you concede that the competing 3G coverage maps will be equivalent for 95% of the pop by Q207 then claiming that Ev-do will dominate until “at least 2010″ is a baffling assumption.

No — you are wrong. As of 2 weeks ago — Cingular’s 3G network covers 134 markets — but only 50 of those markets are “major” (i.e. over 100K population).

http://cingular.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=1746

Of course, “137 major markets” includes such tricks as counting Arlington, VA, Alexandria, VA, and Washington, DC separately. Bellevue, WA, Seattle, WA, and Tacoma, WA all counting separately too. Durham, NC, Raleigh, NC, and Cary, NC, again all separate. http://business.cingular.com/businesscenter/en_US/popup/broadbandconnect-coverage-popup.jsp

However, that said, Cingular is about where Verizon was 12 months ago and even though Verizon and Sprint have a few more areas to push into (or for Sprint, to have Alltel push into so that the cross-roaming agreement will work), you’re right that for 95% of people it will be long before 2010 that Cingular will catch up.

Interesting, Japan and South Korea are not part of the world. Though I know what you meant. Being the one legislated standard in the EU is always going to give the GSM standards a leg up, since nowhere legally requires anything else.

The graph of market share is a bit misleading by itself only because what it really represents is not so much switching from EV-DO to WCDMA, but rather that several GSM operators had issues upgrading to WCDMA. Not surprising; CDMA2000/EV-DO is fully backwards and forwards compatible with the older CDMAOne, whereas the air interface on WCDMA is quite different from GSM.

There are indeed some operators switching from CDMAOne to WCDA and such, though; it’s fairly rare to switch between similar generation technologies, but a switch at the time of an upgrade is not unlikely.

So whilst examining EVDO and WCDMA (UMTS), it is also useful to compare the IP or 4G equation as well (finally mobile players are looking at IP enabling their networks often called 3.5G (HSDPA, HSUPA, etc)and integrating Wi-fi and Wi-Max)- often driven by pressure to adopt triple or quad play as becoming a differentiator and mobile players are being merged or joint ventured with cable or trad telecom players).

(Also- totally different costs factors here which is affecting 3G roll out. Besides cheaper infr costs, CPE costs etc, there is also cheaper licensing (even free if unlicensed bands are used) unlike 3G which was auctioned for millions or billions around the world through beauty contest or auctions.)

This is an interesting topic. It may not be something our Europeans readers worry about, but it is certainly an interesting topic for New Zealanders, Australians and North Americans (U.S mainly)-based users of mobile technologies.I am talking about the…

I agree, without it we cant move a bit.