Ahhh im confused

[Sobe]

Does anyone want to try to give an explanation of gsm, 3g, and all these other terms? I would really appreciate it. I've done some research. But a dummed down single post explaining it would be much much appreciated. Hell it would probably be stickied if it were written well!

[gromitjc]

That's a tall order - here's a quick rundown

GSM - Global System for Mobiles, originally developed in Europe in the early 80's (GSM originally stood for "Groupe Spécial Mobile"), but not put into commerical operation until 1991. It operates over the TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) air-interface (the way a signal is divided up over a frequency spectrum). It is the most widely used mobile phone technology worldwide (70% of the world market). It operates on the 900MHz and 1800MHz frequencies in most countries, but on 850MHz, and 1900MHz in the Americas. In the US it is used by Cingular and T-Mobile.

GSM's primary competitor is usually referred to as CDMA (which is somewhat misleading since CMDA is merely the name of the air interface it uses, the actual technology that runs over it is CDMA2000). CDMA's prime markets are the US (used by Verizon and Sprint), Canada (Bell Mobility and Telus), South Korea (SK Telecom), and Japan (KDDI) but is also used to a lesser extent in Venezuela, Brazil, India, China, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Israel. CDMA networks operate on 800MHz, and 1900MHz.

"3G" is simply an umbrella term for third generation wireless technologies such as UMTS (successor to GSM), and CDMA2000.

[carcomptoy]

CDMA in the US isn't CDMA2000...is it? Cause doesn't the 2000 stand for the band it uses?

[gromitjc]

Yep, it's CDMA2000 (or some cases cdmaOne, it's 2G predecessor). No, the 2000 has nothing to do with the frequency, it's just a catchy name, it still uses the same frequencies as cmdaOne. Verizon and Sprint have been using CDMA200 for several years now. Only recently are they upgrading from CDMA2000 1xRTT (which some argue is 2.75G), to CDMA2000 1xEV-DO.

[carcomptoy]

Well, either way, it's all about GSM/UMTS...:D

[jmax577]

and now umts is a reality here in the usa