GSM-CDMA battle over?

New phones are bridging a major standards gap between the world's cellular carriers, which could ease mobile communications for globetrotters and send upheavals through the wireless industry.

Manufacturers such as Samsung and Motorola have released devices that support both CDMA and GSM, the two incompatible back-end technologies used in the vast majority of mobile phone networks worldwide.

Several cellular carriers around the globe now offer so-called world phone models that work on both network types. Among the earliest backers was China Unicom, which has been building a hybrid network for years and in August announced a major order for hybrid mobile phones. In addition, Israel's Pelephone has announced plans to sell hybrid handsets, while United States-based Verizon Wireless about two weeks ago began marketing a GSM-CDMA phone from Samsung that promises coverage throughout Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.

Analysts said the phones, for now, are a niche product aimed at business travellers who move frequently between regions that support different cellular standards. But the handsets could wind up roiling the industry if they come down in price and break down the technology barriers to international mergers between CDMA and GSM carriers.

"This is a very, very regional niche product for the next year," said Paul Reddy, Intel's wireless architecture manager. "But things should get more interesting in a year or so. If the prices go down, and phones work better, there'll be no real reason why carriers shouldn't deploy these phones in higher numbers."

The first world phones were introduced in the late 1980s, but sales fizzled because of the size and inadequate performance of the models. With no reliable device to bridge the incompatible networks, mobile phone service providers were forced into a choice between CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobile communication). They stuck with variants of the standard they supported, as they made improvements to their networks.

This "pick a standard" attitude created a divided world market in which about a billion mobile phones use GSM, but a sizable pocket of about 200 million people in Asia and North America use CDMA. World business travellers know well the difficulty of crossing borders between CDMA and GSM nations. Many carry two phones.

Now manufacturers are taking advantage of shrinking chip sizes that let them pack pairs of radios and antennae into a single phone, in a dramatically smaller space than was previously possible.

These phones are pricy baubles at the moment. But if prices drop significantly, carriers will have more reason to build mixed networks to take advantage of each standard's particular strengths. GSM's major plus is its ubiquity, while CDMA has a faster data service.