Re:The shit sandwich question (Score 2, Interesting)

CDMA equipment is by and far more expensive than GSM (like almost 10x's more expensive....thanks Qualcomm). In fact, carriers such as US Cellular deployed TDMA (pre-GSM) after analog, and then switched to CDMA. CDMA is a more robust technology than GSM, which is why it give the appearance of better coverage in the sticks. It's also the reason GSM carriers have migrated to UMTS (which is simply wideband CDMA, or W-CDMA). And I think if you compare native coverage, you'll see that AT&T has coverage quite comparable to Alltel and VZW, and I highly doubt they've spent more money on building out their network compared to VZW.