CDMA as an end-of-life technology?

This article in Telecom Magazine and written by Phil Marshall of the Yankee Group is interesting. Marshall writes:

The CDMA market is under long-term pressure in Brazil and is being swapped out for 3GSM in Australia. In Venezuela, Mobilnet has announced plans to overlay GSM on its CDMA network to reach low-end subscribers. In India, Reliance is migrating its CDMA network to GSM in urban areas. Neither Verizon nor Sprint has opted for long-term CDMA migration strategies. Sprint is planning a commercial launch of mobile WiMAX in April, and last November Verizon announced it will implement long-term evolution (LTE), a 3GSM migratory technology.

This, combined with the improvements in GSM technology, has removed many of the advantages that CDMA once had. This graph (from the article) shows CDMA slowing. Since LTE and other technologies don't enter into the technology mix until after 2011, it doesn't show a decline.

US/EU Broadband Comparison

Sean Donelan posted combined the data from the FCC and the EU report, and recalculted, eventually producing this chart (go here for the original):

Broadband technologies in the US

The FCC released its latest report on broadband penetration (incidentally right on the heels of the EU's Review). While these broadband reports have been criticized, and the FCC will be adopting new reporting technologies (see this summary over at CNET), the data on technology use are still interesting and useful.

I have culled this graphic from Table 3 of this report. Plotting it in on a semi-log scale highlights the fastest growing technologies in addition to the ones in greatest use. You can see that, while cable modems are the dominant technology, followed closely by ADSL, the most rapid growth is in fiber and wireless. This should surprise no one, but it is interesting to see it graphically.

700 MHz Auction (No. 73) Ends

The FCC ended its latest auction yesterday (see this announcement). The figure below, from the FCC, shows that proceeds from this auction as compared with previous auctions). The winners of the auction have yet to be announced.