Google → Which standard in South Korea?

Which standard in South Korea? CDMA or GSM?

UMTS.

So what phone should I get for him? He's going to be going there for a year as part of his US Army deployment.

He wants a smartphone, preferably Android.

He currently has a Samsung Galaxy Nexus on Verizon so if he could get another Samsung Galaxy Nexus that would work in that country, that would be great.

That way I could set his phone up with the same setup that I have on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus, namely with AOKP and LeanKernel.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li ··· th_Korea

just oogle it...

Honestly I would suggest he gets one in SK. Pricing might be way cheaper than him using a US based phone and the roaming charges. As the troops cycle often he might even be able to buy a phone from any of the Soldiers leaving to the mainland or deploying elsewhere.

@l3X

He'd be getting an unlocked GSM phone if it will work and put in a SIM card in once he gets there.

There are no GSM networks in Korea.

If you want to get an unlocked phone, make sure to get one that has UMTS @ 2100 MHz. Google Nexus 4 sounds like it might be a good candidate (plus it's very cheap in the US, price-wise), if you can wait a couple of more days, until it's released for purchase on Nov 13th at Google Play.

But I would, too, recommend to see if this stuff can be purchased in Korea instead; although you probably can't beat Google's 299$ tag for an unlocked 3.75G phone.

Yeah, but the Nexus 4 isn't out yet and won't be out until after he's gone. So that's why I was thinking the unlocked Galaxy Nexus.

According to the web site below, it says that the Galaxy Nexus Maguro should work.
»www.phonearena.com/phone ··· s_id5595

Not sure what you mean. »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMTS is a GSM even »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G ··· volution is a GSM... All three providers support GSM phones just make sure it's unlocked and world which most are these days.

The gnex "maguro" is the gsm hspa+ version.

Maguro is tuna as most sashimi lovers know. Funny naming a phone model that.

LTE is not GSM, and UMTS is not GSM, either. All three are completely different standards.

Unless you want to start claiming that Verizon is somehow suddenly a GSM provider (which it is not, never has been, and never will be).

There is no GSM in Japan or Korea. There are also a number of providers in the world, including Canada and UK, who don't offer any GSM service, but do offer UMTS (with no GSM whatsoever).

It is incorrect to claim that a GSM phone will work in Korea, because it would not.

Well then what kind of phone will work there? There has got to be a phone that he can get here in the states before he ships out so that I can prepare the phone for use.

Any phone that supports the 3G UMTS 2100 band (1900 MHz uplink + 2100 MHz downlink), aka Band I. In the US, that means most, if not all, 3G (and above) phones sold by T-Mobile and AT&T.

Check out phonescoop.com and gsmarena.com where you can look up phones by specs. You'll probably get hundreds if not thousands of matches.

It looks like he may have to get a phone in South Korea when he gets there. I told him to make sure that he gets a "Google" phone and not some other Android phone.

The reason I say that is because I want him to get a phone that has Full Google AOSP support.

not sure what the others are talking about but here you go... »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa ··· xy_S_III

S iii us works on the same band except you won't get LTE oyvey! Get the unlocked ATT/Tmobile Version which are both GSM based...

I think I heard that the motherboard in that phone is called Tuna.

Nope.

»www.3gpp.org/specifications
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LT ··· ation%29Gsm includes Gsm , UMTS , HSPA+, and LTE. Lte is a revision of UMTS.

and Verizon has always been compatible at the network level for GSM, Vodafone which owns them needed compatibility for roaming. Verizon has always been a GSM and CDMA provider.

Not to be insulting or anything, but there's a lot of conflicting answers being passed around here in this thread.

All I really want to know is if an unlocked GSM Galaxy Nexus (Maguro) that's bought off of a site such as Swappa.com.

From GSM world.

Korea, South 3G 2100 SK Telecom / Bell Laboratories

If the phone has Euro 2100 config.

according to this: »www.phonescoop.com/phone ··· p?p=3517

It contains the 2100 band.

»www.amazon.com/Samsung-G ··· 05XYU45E

Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 850/900/1700/1900/2100. Platform: Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0). CPU: 1.2 GHZ dual core processor. Memory: 16GB built-in, 1GB RAM

if you compare my GS3 link from Wiki will tell you that South Koreans are all GSM frequencies that will support »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga ··· xy_Nexus using the same frequencies.

GSM does not include UMTS and LTE. Stop spreading misinformation. Nowhere on wikipedia (as if that's even a source of information), is it claimed that GSM includes UMTS and LTE.

To quote from your own link as above:

said by »www.3gpp.org/specifications :

---

The term "3GPP specification" covers all GSM (including GPRS and EDGE), W-CDMA and LTE (including LTE-Advanced) specifications. The following terms are also used to describe networks using the 3G specifications: UTRAN, UMTS (in Europe) and FOMA (in Japan).

---

So, 3GPP includes GSM, UMTS/W-CDMA and LTE, but GSM is strictly a term that refers to GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks.

Verizon has never been compatible with GSM; Vodafone owning a major stake in Verizon Wireless, and Verizon's abroad roaming agreements with European carriers, doesn't make Verizon compatible with GSM at all. A GSM phone will obviously not work on Verizon's nationwide home network.

South Korea (and Japan) has no GSM frequencies! Where do you get this information that they do?

If one wants a phone for South Korea (or Japan), one has to compare the UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+ frequencies (all 3 of these acronyms are compatible as far as frequencies go). Comparing GSM frequencies would be pointless, because South Korea has no GSM!

Yes, an unlocked GSM/HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus should seemingly work in Korea (and noone is actually disputing that it will work). The conflicting answers stem from the fact that some people seem to misunderstand that UMTS/HSPA/etc is different and separate from GSM/GPRS/EDGE.

So you, ConstantineM , are saying that the Maguro Galaxy Nexus will work there. Right?

According to the following page from GSM Association, any phone that's designed to work on a European UMTS frequency, 2100 (also known as W-CDMA 2100), would also work in South Korea. The GSM/HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus, GT-I9250, happens to be one such phone (I own one, BTW).

»maps.mobileworldlive.com ··· lic%20of

Wikipedia article about UMTS Frequency Bands also confirms that Europe and (some parts of) Asia share the same band.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UM ··· cy_bands

And just to make it clear about the whole fuss regarding GSM vs. UMTS: if you disable UMTS on your phone, via, "Use only 2G networks (Saves battery)" in "Mobile network settings", or if you have a GSM-only phone (with no UMTS support), then your phone won't work in South Korea at all, because they have no GSM networks. I hope this clarifies any issues you might have regarding the "conflicting answers being passed around here in this thread".

P.S. Google Nexus 4 release is almost here; might as well wait until Tuesday, 13th Nov, and get it direct from Google for 299$ (8GB) or 349$ (16GB). :-)

Well... here's to hoping that the dev team behind AOKP can get the AOSP code of the Nexus 4 merged into the codebase so I can send him along with a good and decent AOKP-based ROM.

The reason why I was thinking about the Galaxy Nexus was because device support for it is very mature in the AOSP scene.

The miscommunication here is the SIM/GSM is used interchangeably all over the world and ConM thinks otherwise.