WCDMA and HSDPA?
I bought a new mobile phone, and it happens that it only supports 3G (WCDMA).
I am currently living in Canada, Toronto.
I heard that HSDPA is more powerful than WCDMA, and HSDPA is covered in Toronto. Does it mean my phone shouldbe be able to work, since HSDPA is fully backward compatible with WCDMA?
Thanks!
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I think you are getting things a bit mixed up. WCDMA (or Wideband CDMA) is a technological term used to describe so called '3G' cellular services. Despite the naming convention, WCDMA doesn't necessarilly only work with CDMA technology (CDMA is the technology that Verizon and Sprint use in the US; AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM) -- although there are some CDMA services that could be considered WCDMA.
One version of WCDMA is the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) which in fact is the WCDMA technology used by AT&T/Cingular and I believe by Rogers in Toronto as well. The underlying technology used by AT&T's and Roger's UMTS is High Speed Downlink Packet Access or HSDPA. Thus if you have an HSDPA compatible device you are in fact using WCDMA technology. I know, its a confusing alphabet soup, but that is the nature of telecom services unfortunately.
So in answer to your question what you need to do is find out if your device is an HSDPA compatible device. But I would think that it is because that I am aware of the only WCDMA services available in Canada at this time are in fact the UMTS/HSDPA services offered by Rogers. Most HSDPA devices are backwards compatible and in the case of AT&T/Rogers I believe this would mean the device would be able to utilize other GSM services like EDGE and GPRS when HSDPA services are not available. But that can vary depending on the carrier, so check with the provider to be sure.
I hope this clears things up a bit.
One version of WCDMA is the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) which in fact is the WCDMA technology used by AT&T/Cingular and I believe by Rogers in Toronto as well. The underlying technology used by AT&T's and Roger's UMTS is High Speed Downlink Packet Access or HSDPA. Thus if you have an HSDPA compatible device you are in fact using WCDMA technology. I know, its a confusing alphabet soup, but that is the nature of telecom services unfortunately.
So in answer to your question what you need to do is find out if your device is an HSDPA compatible device. But I would think that it is because that I am aware of the only WCDMA services available in Canada at this time are in fact the UMTS/HSDPA services offered by Rogers. Most HSDPA devices are backwards compatible and in the case of AT&T/Rogers I believe this would mean the device would be able to utilize other GSM services like EDGE and GPRS when HSDPA services are not available. But that can vary depending on the carrier, so check with the provider to be sure.
I hope this clears things up a bit.
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