EDGE Isn't So Temporary Any More
We’ve written before how many carriers had originally made the decision to ignore EDGE and jump straight to W-CDMA 3G services. However, as they realized that they were rushing in a little too fast (and the “early adopter” carriers found out that 3G wasn’t their automated ticket to profits, profits and more profits). Now, many are even going further than using EDGE as a stepping stone, to the point where they expect to keep EDGE networks running in certain places for a very long time. It seems that many carriers are looking to adopt the “oceans of EDGE, islands of W-CDMA” plan, where they’ll coat a country with EDGE and just use W-CDMA in more heavily used areas. The linked article is correct in this analysis, and in fact Techdirt originally made these conclusions last June.
