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Cell Phone Standards: Traveler’s Guide
By admin | March 24, 2008
Cell phones have found their way to every part of our every day life. The advantages of having a cellular phone are obvious. Apart from immediate access to help in case of an emergency, mobile services can also be much cheaper than those of local communication providers. In some situations cell phones can turn out to be the only possible way to get online. But for a traveler together with the convenience mobile technology can present a number of challenges. One of them is whether your cell phone will work as you travel from one place to another.
There are a number of cellular phone standards that can vary from country to country. If you rely on your mobile phone as your major communication tool while you are abroad, you need to know whether it is compatible with the system that is used by the providers in the country of your destination.
GSM - Global System for Mobiletelephones.
As the name itself suggests this system is closest to a “world standard”. GSM systems are used by mobile communication providers in more than 200 countries throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia.
AMPS - Advanced Mobile Phone System
Once considered a cutting-edge technology, now this system is rather out of date. However in some areas it is still the only functioning mobile network. In most of the USA it has been replaced with a newer digital technology of E-AMPS. Apart from every country in the Western part of the globe the 800mhz AMPS service is also used in China, American Samoa, Western Samoa, South Korea, Nauru, Lebanon, Turkmenistan, Solomon Islands and Uzbekistan. If you are going to one of these countries it might be a good idea to buy a used cell phone with AMPS system as a back up for areas were no GSM network is available.
It is a digital version of the AMPS system that also uses 800 Mhz band. It is not very widely used but is still functioning in Israel, Canada, Brazil, Panama, Ukraine, Russia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
TACS - Total Access Communications Service
An analog European cell phone system that uses 900 Mhz spectrum. It is still used in Bahrain, China, Congo, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Italy, Kenya, Kuwait, the UK, the Philippines, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and some other countries.
This is an analog alternative to AMPS and TACS that works with the 450Mhz and 900Mhz bands. It is used in some parts of Asia and Europe. But with the widespread of GSM many countries have stopped this service.
TDMA - Time Division Multiple Access
This is the first digital cellular phones network to be widely used in the Americas. It is still a major system employed by the wireless networks in the US. TDMA is also used in Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and other countries. But it is being rapidly overtaken by GSM and CDMA.
CDMA - Code Division Multiple Access
A major competitor to TDMA in the Americas, Australia, Guatemala, South Korea, Russia, Zambia and Venezuela, technically this system is considered to be more efficient than GSM but it is not as widely spread.
Topics: Cell Phones, Other phones related |
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