Comparing the two most prevalent mobile communication technologies

WHAT IS ?

GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication)

Based

on TDMA technology Mainly used in Europe, Middle-east and Africa

CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)

Based on a spread-spectrum technology Mainly used in North America

 Transmission over Radio Frequency (800MHz 1900MHz) Frequency Division Multiple Access
An analog system. Each user is given one channel (i.e., one frequency). Bad utilisation.

Technology: FDMA

Power

Frequency
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Technology: TDMA
GSM uses TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) CDMA is a "spread spectrum" technology, allowing many users to occupy the same time and frequency allocations in a given band/space. Each mobile station has a unique digital code. The signals are spread over the entire spectrum of 1.25MHz unlike FDMA/TDMA.

Frequency

Power

Spectrum
Mobile communication uses Radio Frequency (RF)

GSM uses frequencies 824 849 MHz (25 MHz band) and 869 895 MHz (25 MHz band)
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Cellular Architecture
BSC Abis A HLR VLR BSC EIR AuC BTS Mobile Station Base Station Subsystem Network Subsystem
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Um

MSC

PST N

Cells
The coverage area is divided into hexagonal cells A BTS is situated at three of the vertices of each cell In USA, the spectrum in each cell is divided into two bands: A-band and Bband, each 25 MHz Each 25 MHz band is divided into 832 30 kHz channels Two channels separated by 45 MHz Cell Site forms a full-duplex channel The number of channels used in a cell varies from as low as 4 to as many as 80

GSM Frames and Burst periods

TCH Traffic Channel

SACCH Assoc. Control Channel

BP Burst Period
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Handover/Handoff
Internal Handovers (only one BSC involved)
Channels in the same cell Cells under the same BSC

External Handovers (involved the MSC)

Cells under different BSCs under the same MSC Cells under different MSCs (anchor MSC and relay MSC)

Techniques used:
Minimum acceptable performance: increase power i.s.o. handover Power budget: handover i.s.o. increasing power
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Services
SMS (Short Message Service) http://www.gsmworld.com/technology/sms/intro.sht ml Facsimile (for receiving fax on a mobile station) WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) a standard to let wireless equipment access the Internet. A Wireless Markup Language (WML) is used to encode the pages instead of HTML. MMS (Multimedia Message Service) EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM evolution) The ever elusive Killer app
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History and proponents

Group Spciale Mobile Cellular services started in Europe in 1982 13 operators in Europe sign a MoU in 1987 Radiolinja Oy became the first GSM network operator in 1992
cdmaOne (2G) IS-95A (First CDMA cellular standard) First deployed in Sep 1996 by Hutchison IS-95B (2.5G) First deployed in Sep 1999 in Korea CDMA2000 (3G) CDMA2000 1X (Phase 1) Deployed in Korea in 2000 CDMA2000 1x EV-DO CDMA2000 1x EV-DV

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Standards and standardization

GSM coordinated by 3GPP Release 99 Release 4 (was Release 2000) W-CDMA (Widebad CDMA) coordinated by 3GPP2 B-CDMA (Broadband CDMA) cdmaOne (2G) IS-95A 1.25MHz CDMA channels circuit switched data connections at 14.4kbps IS-95B (2.5G) CDMA2000 (3G) CDMA2000 1X (Phase 1)

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Statistics (Geography-wise)
Over 1 billion GSM subscribers

Millions 500 400 300 200 100 0

Over 170 million CDMA subscribers

GSM CDMA

A si N aP or th aci A fic S ou m th eri A ca m er ic a E M E A

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Statistics (Subscriber growth)

Millions 1,000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

GSM CDMA

D ec .2 00 D 1 ec .2 00 D 2 ec .2 00 3

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Glossary
GPRS General Packet Radio Service; GPRS represents first implementation of packet switching within GSM, precursor to 3G GGSN Gateway GPRS Support Node; the gateway between the cellular network and the IP network

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References
GSM Association website, at http://www.gsmworld.com CDMA Development group, at http://www.cdg.com UMTS World, at http://www.umtsworld.com How Stuff Works: Cell Phones, at http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cell-phone.htm Cellular Telephone Basics, at http://www.privateline.com/Cellbasics/Cellbasics.html GSM overview, at http://ccnga.uwaterloo.ca/~jscouria/GSM/gsmreport.h tml
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