How long will the GSM and CDMA boom last? - RF Cafe Forums

RF Cafe Forums closed its virtual doors in late 2012 mainly due to other social media platforms dominating public commenting venues. RF Cafe Forums began sometime around August of 2003 and was quite well-attended for many years. By 2012, Facebook and Twitter were overwhelmingly dominating online personal interaction, and RF Cafe Forums activity dropped off precipitously. Regardless, there are still lots of great posts in the archive that ware worth looking at. Below are the old forum threads, including responses to the original posts. Here is the full original RF Cafe Forums on Archive.org

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new_kid

Post subject: How long will the GSM and CDMA boom last? Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:09 am

Hey guys,

Im an Electrical Engineer..recent graduate , i wanted to know for how long the job in RF Engineering , optimization , cellular network design last....?

I mean after 5-10 years will the people still have these jobs or will they fire everyone.

I was planning on a career in this field.

Please send me your comments .

thank you,

new_kid.

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guest

Post subject: Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 12:52 pm

In all likelyhood, the job you take today will be much different 5 to 10 years from now. Technology and our economy tend to change fast. The CDMA and GSM industries will morph into something else and you will have to change throughout your career to keep up. This is one thing that makes a career as an engineer challenging.

I started my RF career working with AMPS, the old analog cell phone system. I went from amps to GSM, CDMA, WCDMA and CDMA2000 and will continue to learn and grow with the emergence of new wireless standards. Such is the nature of this work.

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MCV

Post subject: Career StabilityPosted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:44 pm

You will be OK only if the company you work for allows you to stick around. I too started in the prehistoric AMPS days and rose through the ranks during the Cellular/PCS evolutions, and still was laid off at the end of 2002 from a company that was a great company until Cingular Wireless decided it was time to expand my horizons.

I still keep current, but I took a lesser position with a company I never would have even considered working for, even when I was in Two-Way back in the mid eighties.

Posted  11/12/2012