Nokia is working on a CDMA smartphone, no timeline yet
I receive lots of questions from readers, keep them coming folks, and one of the more common questions is in regards to CDMA support here in the US. Since most of the rest of the world is all GSM Nokia has focused their smartphone efforts on making GSM devices. In a recent BusinessWeek article OPK (Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo) stated, “We are investing in CDMA. It is our ambition to come out with a smartphone in CDMA.” At this time, there are no Nokia CDMA smartphones so Verizon and Sprint customers don’t get to enjoy using these devices.
The article is also quite interesting in regards to the issue of Nokia’s presence here in the US, that we have talked about a few times.
7 Comments to Nokia is working on a CDMA smartphone, no timeline yet
There was actually a CDMA version of the 6630, at one point. I don’t know if it ever reached beyond the labs, but I know they were working on it, believe it was the 6638. Ugly as sin, but S60 on CDMA, nonetheless.
Update: here’s the FCC filing: http://www.mobiletracker.net/archives/2005/04/27/nokia-6638
BartJuly 1, 2009
Personally I can’t see why Nokia would bother – CDMA as we know it is dying, and will be gone in a few years. The big CDMA carrier in the US (Verizon)is moving to LTE (the GSM 4G solution) over the next 2 to 3 years along with pretty much everyone else, and I believe even the big CDMA Korean carriers are going that route also.
Considering the amount of development and lead time a phone seems to require (18 months or so from what I’ve seen) a CDMA smartphone from Nokia would arrive just in time to see the network be eclipsed by LTE, assuming development started today. It seems the only way it makes sense is if the phone is already in development and will be available this year.
Isn’t CDMA Smart Phone an oxymoron? Everyone is shutting down CDMA networks outside of the US. Time to move on.
TylerJuly 2, 2009
Bart,
Consider how many millions of customers the major CDMA carriers have. Verizon and Sprint can’t afford to ditch CDMA in “a few years.” They’ll have to properly phase it out a lot like AT&T did when they transitioned from TDMA to GSM. Nokia still has plenty of time to get something out the door before CDMA is dead.
affanDecember 12, 2009
i want to to say that cdma networks not only in usa , there are more than 150 service providers in all over the world ,,, in yemen cdma is growing very fast than gsm ,, so we urge nokia and other mobile manufacturers to look to that markets and to concentrate on cdma smart mobiles
MatthewJanuary 11, 2010
Yes, CDMA is dying…but LTE is backwards compatible with the technology. So all CDMA phones currently running now, or in the next 2 years, will also run on the LTE network when they switch it over.
That was one of the reasons Verizon decided to switch to the GSM 4G network technology rather than go with CDMA’s 4G network technology (the committee for LTE added CDMA support to the protocol).
July 1, 2009