Forum Archive Index - July 2000

[Rhys Lewis <rhys.lewis@zivo.co.nz>]

Sorry about that.  I was trying to keep it brief.

SMS = Short Message Service.  This is the little 160 character notes that
you can send from phone to phone, or from a computer to a phone.

WAP = Wireless Application Protocol.  This is a more advanced cell phone
technology where your phone connects to an Internet web site and can
'browse' it as if it were a kind of web browser.  Obviously you are severely
restricted by space, but you can get a lot of useful information onto a
small screen if you work at it.

Then there are the types of network that the operators use.  Telecom was
first to the country with AMPS, which is basically an analog based system.
With this kind of set up the phone communicates with the local cell phone
tower over a simple FM (as in AM/FM radio) connection.  You can pick these
up with any radio that can receive the appropriate frequency range.

Next came Bellsouth with GSM (don't know what it stands for), which is a
digital format (conspiracy theorists can argue over why Telecom didn't
originally choose it in the first place!), which encodes your voice into
digital data, and then sends that over the connection to cell site.  Because
it is using a digital connection it is possible to do more complicated
things than simply transferring voices, so you get all the other services
like SMS, call waiting, caller ID etc.  GSM is the European standard.

Then Telecom introduced a digital network called D/AMPS, which is basically
AMPS with digital strapped on.  This achieved some of the digital features
of GSM (most importantly now SMS is missing), but it's big bonus was that it
worked well with AMPS, so they could do a phased roll out with dual mode
phones that could switch to AMPS when the coverage got bad.

The big buzz now is 2G and 3G networks.  1G is basic voice (GSM/AMPS/DAMPS).
2G is voice with a bit of data at around the sophistication of WAP (GSM as
it is now), and 3G is high bandwidth data over cellular networks.  3G should
allow for full video/audio delivery to phones, high speed internet
connections etc.

So Telecom is looking at rolling out a 3rd network (after AMPS and DAMPS)
called CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access).  This system will be able to
offer all the 3G stuff.

Does that help?

Rhys

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Gale [mailto:brigale@i4free.co.nz]
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2000 12:00 PM
To: sharechat@sharechat.co.nz
Subject: RE: [sharechat] Telecom & XTRA


Hi Rhys

         Thanks for the info but I have to confess that the technical 
aspects are rather over my head.

         As you are up with the technical play would you mind giving an 
outline of the various terms i.e.
SMS, WAP, CDMA and I'm not  not even sure about GSM.

         I'm sure other Chatters will find this of interest to get a better 
understanding of what is happening in the battle of the telecos.

Regards
Brian


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