Friday, June 27, 2003

The battle for Iraq's cell phone network...

Wired News has a good article about the fight to decide on which technology to base Iraq's new cell phone network. Originally, MCI was awarded a contract to build a GSM network. US politicians were upset about two aspects of this...1) that MCI does not actually own or operate a cellular network in the US and 2) that GSM is a European standard and not widely used in the US.

The most upset was a congressman from California who thinks Iraq should have a CDMA network. His view point is slightly skewed because Qualcomm, who owns the CDMA technology, is based in his home state and would benefit greatly from Iraq using their product.

My viewpoint is that since GSM is the European and Middle Eastern standard, the US should not contract someone to build anything but a GSM network in Iraq. A CDMA network in Iraq would mean that Iraqi's could easily use their cell phones thousands of miles away in the US but not in their own region. That just doesn't seem right.

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