NewtonTalk.net January 2008 archive: Re: [NTLK] Cellular setup f

From: Ed Kummel <tech_ed_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Fri Jan 25 2008 - 19:08:56 EST

Not really.
  Back in the analog days, there were three encodings for phone conversations, FDMA, TDMA and CDMA. The cellular industry used TDMA and CDMA (which stands for Time Division Multiple Access and Code Division Multiple Access) These technologies allowed multiple (hence the"M") conversations to be held on a single line (later Sprint introduced PCS which failed with hillarious consequences) Because the analog world is so...well, analog, they needed some way of putting more than one conversation on a single line to handle the growth of the medium...gone were the days of "Party Lines" or calling the operator who plugged your connection into a dedicated connection for a particular user (as in the old timey black and white files of yesteryear). TDMA was a license free technology that anyone could use and as a result, it was usually the competitor of the incumbant phone company who utilized it in order to maximize profits and minimize costs. The incumbant carriers (backed by big
money phone companies) used CDMA because they could afford to pay the licensing fee that Qualcom extorted from it's adoptors (still a sour taste in the maw of Nokia) and while OK...CDMA could carry more traffic than TDMA, it still was far inferior to other freely used technologies like GSM which held far more promise than CDMA or TDMA. And of course, we're all now quite familiar with 3G, 3.5G and now 4G.
  Note...these techniques are not necessarily dedicated to digital or analog...they work quite well in both realms...(I had an analog GSM phone when I visited Germany back in then 90s that I rented from a cellular rental company and it worked fine where ever I went)
  as a side note. I seem to remember that GSM uses TDMA instead of CDMA and Qualcom went on a rampage saying that because GSM was so entrenched in Europe, that it created an unfair disadvantage against their entry into Europe.

  Ed
  web/gadget guru
  http://newton.tek-ed.com (download Newton packages)
"Russell,Allen" <Allen.Russell@boc.com> wrote:
  I'm no expert but . . . isn't "CDMA analog" incorrect? CDMA is digital
service, just not the latest data system. True analog service was/is
called AMPS.

(note that I looked this up on my Newton of course, I wrote the note on
Dec 11, 1996)

Allen

> From: Greg Spencer
>Subject: Re: [NTLK] Cellular setup for sale
>Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:35:27 -0500
>
>On 23-Jan-08, at 11:23 PM, Aaron Brigati wrote:
>
>Folks, just an FYI - Greg has a .ca email address, so I'm betting
>this wouldn't effect him, but in the United States the analog cell
>network is being largely turned off in February, so this phone
>wouldn't work any more.
>It'll still work fine anywhere else, though.
>(This is causing a lot of issues. For instance, old OnStar
>installations in cars won't work any longer.)
>On Jan 23, 2008, at 4:39 PM, Greg Spencer wrote:
>
>> Housecleaning has unearthed my old StarTAC phone & modem that I used
>> to use with my MP2100. Since I no longer use either, perhaps someone
>> on the list would be interested in having it. Here's what's in the
>> box:
>> StarTAC CDMA analog phone - it's either a 6000 or 6500 - I used it on
>> the Bell Mobility network but it should work on any CDMA system
>> Phone manual - includes programming instructions so you can set it up
>> for your own network

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