Appendix
94
Glossary of Terms
Airtime - Actual time spent talking on the wireless phone. Most
carriers bill customers based on how many minutes of
airtime they use each month.
AMPS - (Advanced Mobile Phone System) The standard Analog
wireless telephone service.
Antenna - A device for transmitting or receiving signals. The
size and shape of antennas is determined, in part, by the
frequency of the signal they receive. Wireless phones and
the base station must have antennas.
Base Station - The fixed radio transmitter / receiver that
maintains communications with mobile radio telephones
within a given area. (Typically seen as cell or cell site.)
CDMA – (Code Division Multiple Access) A spread-spectrum
approach to digital transmission. With CDMA, each
conversion is digitized and then tagged with a code. The
mobile phone deciphers only a particular code to pick the
right conversation off the air. The transmitted signal is just
above noise level across the available bandwidth.
Channel - Communications signals transmit along paths called
channels.
Deactivation - The process of rendering a wireless phone
inactive.
DTMF - (Dual-tone Multi-frequency) You send DTMF signals
when you enter numbers by pressing the digit keys.
