lifebeginsat190,

GSM refers to the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. According to Wikipeida, "GSM is used by over 2 billion people across more than 212 countries and territories. Its ubiquity makes international roaming very common between mobile phone operators, enabling subscribers to use their phones in many parts of the world. The ubiquity of the GSM standard has been advantageous to both consumers (who benefit from the ability to roam and switch carriers without switching phones) and also to network operators (who can choose equipment from any of the many vendors implementing GSM).

what is gsm???

I have to travel a lot so Rogers is really the only option. All of Europe, Asia and the Caribbeans use GSM. North America, epically Canada is really behind in cell phone technology. Rogers was the first Canadian company to make the move to GSM, their service started of as really crappy, but in the last two years they have made some really good progress. If you live in an Canadian city (espically southern Ontario) Rogers is the way to go! They have better service and a faster network then Aliant and Telus.

Empress Jay
You have to be careful, I agree. Make sure you always check out consumer forums before buying stuff. As a former cellphone salesman, I recommend you don't go to a cellphone salesman to buy a cellphone! They are under pressure to sell you a cellphone to make money under any circumstance: Some are paid less than minimum wage and depend on the commission they get when they sell you a contract plan, which sounds like what may have happened in your case. The other problem with buying from a rep. is that you may have difficulty in getting it taken care of when something goes wrong with the phone. I'm not sure if it's the case now, but this used to be a huge problem for what used to be RadioShack, which took your phone in for repair and then sent them away to a regional repair depot, then if they couldn't fix it to a central repair depot, then perhaps to Rogers, before going back the same way and eventually to the store you put it in for repair in.

I always buy my phone from Rogers itself via *611 on my Rogers phone.... it could just be my overall experience but I think they treat you better if you go through Rogers rather than go to through an intermediary. In most circumstances I receive my purchased phone in a 2-3 days via Purolator. If I don't like it or think something's wrong with it, I call in and they tell me to send it back (just make sure you hold on to your original packaging). They may send you a purolator package so that you don't have to pay for postage. I've done this and without issue. A new phone arrived fairly quickly.

Something you should know: Remember that you have 30 days or 30 minutes (whichever comes first) to test out your phone... if you are under those limits you CAN return your phone (and if on a contract, your contract can be annulled if you don't want another phone)). Make sure that this is the case before using your phone by asking Rogers during your phone purchase as the terms may have changed recently.

Internet: If an area has an explosion in customers that precedes their infrastructure upgrades for that area, expect slower than advertised speeds. Note that if your speeds are less than half what you are paying for you can call them every month and ask them to reimburse you for 50% of your bill. The trick is to convince them that it's their problem. Make sure you can back claims up with facts.

Also, whenever dealing with Rogers start off pleasant but confident. They are trained to be pleasant but condescending when dealing with complaining customers, so you may not get much headway that way. If you sound REASONABLE (even if not polite), they will respond favourably. And report ANYTHING you want to do or have to do re: Rogers services, that way you have a record. Remember *611's a free call

newtotelus
I agree CDMA is the better quality technology (at least undtil hscsd comes out with GSM) but I disagree that it operates using less power. If that was the case, the majority of CDMA phones would have HIGHER talk and standby times than GSM, which isn't the case. I admit I haven't looked recently, but I've never seen a 8+hour talk time CDMA phone, where I've seen several (mostly Sony-Ericsson's) GSM phones that have. I have to confirm research before saying more, but all-in-all GSM is the way to go for a) the average user and b) the business user.

Ive been with all three major carriers in Canada. Lets start with Bell, Their reception is only good in areas with a low population, more people in town = crappier reception. The idiots who work the call centres dont have any clue what they are doing and are just so dumb its unblievable. Now to Rogers, they are better than bell until you have to call them to change things, "oh you'll have to call agian when were not so busy!" they say most of the time. Little did they realize that this was my main reason for stopping their services. Now ive been with Telus since January with a Mike phone. Works beautifully, billed by the second for mike calls and all in all has the best plans. The only downside is not being able to download mp3's to my motorola i760 phone :( like you can with bell and rogers but that is a design flaw in all of the i series phones, motorola say it cant be done as it corrupts the software. Yeah right im sure, its just a ploy to get you to have another phone to dl them to then send via multimedia msgs. This works fine unless you go over the monthly allotment of both txt and data The bills I have received are in the order of Telus having the best value then bell and Rogers last. Keeping in mind i was on a long distance plan with all 3 carriers. Data transfer rates are usually really slow with bell in an urban area, rogers have decent speeds but now since telus introduced SPARK they have surpassed rogers for a while. I predict in a few more years wireless data transfer rates witth be conquerable to that of 10/100base t ethernet.

Peace Out C.

RECEPTION for Ottawa from my experience, Bell - good, Telus - good, Rogers - sweet, i've had a cell phone since grade 10 and i've been with every company except Fido. PHONE SELECTION - Bell - good Telus - used to be the best Rogers - sweet (especially if you get cool new unlocked ones, check out http://www.engadget.com/ for the lowdow on new phones. Basically, the majority of the world uses GSM, so the best phone selection is obviously going to be GSM. PLANS - they are all the same (look for good ones around holidays or get hooked up with a gov/company plan) CONTRACTS - stay away from contracts if possible, TELUS - wow... if you sign up for 3 years, make sure you're positive you want to stay for three, $200 MINIMUM contract cancelation with TELUS or... $20 a month on your remaining time, cancel with 2 years left = $480!!! ROGERS - $200 MAXIMUM payment for cancelled contract (ps. little secret if you can go without a phone for a bit and can fork out the $200, if you cancel, the COME BACK AND STILL GIVE US YOUR MONEY PPPPPLEASE sales team will call you and offer you some SWEET deals and give you your $200 bucks back, don't quote me too much on it, but i did it and they came crawling on all fours to get me back. BELL - no idea, havn't used them since grade 12 (2002). RENEWALS - for all you that think I'm a ROGERS guy, i'm not, i'm currently serving my 3 year sentence with TELUS, cause i couldn't pass up the free service for a year promotion last year when you switch from rogers, especially when i only had a month left on my rogers contract, SCORE. However, 2 and half years just to be able to get an UPGRADE, common! My phone is half busted, inner screen is FADED and i can't read it unless i'm in a darker area, i just want a new phone that won't cost me $800, i was thinking more on the lines of like $100. but no, rogers is i think 2 years, and if your really hurting, you can pay a BIT more to get an early upgrade. BELL - again, not alot of insight, sorry. If anyone can shed some light on some of the things i get upset about, TELUS boys, BELL boys, ROGERS boys, whatever team your on, hey, turn it on, i'll be happy to sit there under your light and try and read the text message you sent me on my stupid faded screen.

I am a Telus newbie and came across this page researching the differences between CDMA and GMS. Sorry guy that works for Rogers...Maybe you should try doing a bit of researching outside your training classes . Not only does CDMA have better quality but it also have better privacy and eliminates cloning and other types of fraud. CDMA also giving customers longer talk time and battery life by running on lowest power levels in the industry. I say staying with telus is a better choice and we now have pink razers.. ENJOY!

gsm is a lot better because you can swap your sim card to different gsm phones. if you broke your phone, you can just pay 50 bucks or less to get a used gsm phone and use it...

gsm all the way....

here's an interesting look at the gsm / cdma debate.

http://tinyurl.com/8guda

"North American telecom operators may end up shifting to the GSM mobile standard from the rival CDMA system."

These is rather biased coming from Siemens but as the article notes, much of south america is already switching over to GSM from CDMA.

One day when Telus and Bell decide to get with the real world and switch over to GSM towers...they are going to have crappy coverage...just like Rogers started out with. I know that Rogers doesn't have the best coverage but they sure are gaining. In Manitoba, there are more Rogers towers than MTS towers. In Alberta, Telus has two more towers than Rogers. But Rogers has the lead in the long run, because they are GSM.

I don't think Bell and Telus will switch over to GSM, because its old system and
costs more. That is why there are so many towers, in order to match up with the CDMA services.

The RAZR sucks anyway. They break after about 6 months of use. CDMA is the best option for Canada.

I would stick with Telus and stay away from Rogers. I used to have Rogers and I got rid of it because of threr morons who work at Coutomer Service. I have Telus now and I love it. I own the LG 6190 and it works awnsome except the reception can be bad at times and takes some time to load up but other than that It's great. My friend had the Razor and he threw it away after two month because it had so many problems (ie Camera Broke, Bad reception.) stay with TElsu and get the phone.

Where do u live? GSM is awesome in Alberta, BC, Manitoba and Ontario. Go into your local Rogers store and they will have a map on Microsofts Streets which will show u the location of every Rogers tower in your province and it will also show where the competitions towers are. GSM is awesome....I can't believe that Telus or Bell haven't gotten into it....but it has taken Rogers a long time and a lot of money to build up to having a decent GSM network. One day when Telus and Bell decide to get in with GSM, Rogers will be the leading cell phone company in Canada because Telus and Bell will have to switch all their towers over. Anyways, hope u like your new Razor.