What is GSM?
Definition: GSM, which stands for Global System for Mobile communications, reigns as the world’s most widely used cell phone technology. Cell phones use a cell phone service carrier’s GSM network by searching for cell phone towers in the nearby area.
The origins of GSM can be traced back to 1982 when the Groupe Spécial Mobile (GSM) was created by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) for the purpose of designing a pan-European mobile technology.
What is CDMA?
Definition: CDMA, or Code Division Multiple Access, is a competing cell phone service technology to GSM, which is the world’s most widely used cell phone standard.
CDMA uses a “spread-spectrum” technique whereby electromagnetic energy is spread to allow for a signal with a wider bandwidth. This allows multiple people on multiple cell phones to be “multiplexed” over the same channel to share a bandwidth of frequencies.
With CDMA technology, data and voice packets are separated using codes and then transmitted using a wide frequency range. Since more space is often allocated for data with CDMA, this standard became attractive for 3G high-speed mobile Internet use.
What is TDMA?
TDMA is used in second-generation (2G) cell phone systems such as GSM. Most major third-generation (3G) cell phone systems are primarily based upon GSM rival CDMA. 3G allows for faster data speeds over 2G.
While TDMA and CDMA both achieve the same goal, they do so using different methods. TDMA technology works by dividing each digital cellular channel into three time slots for the purpose of increasing the amount of data carried.
Multiple users, therefore, can share the same frequency channel without causing interference because the signal is divided into multiple time slots.
While each conversation is transmitted alternately over short lengths of time with TDMA technology, CDMA separates communications by code so multiple calls can also be routed into the same channel.
Comments