What to know about TDMA and CDMA Technology

Time division multiple access(TDMA)

Time division multiple access (TDMA) is a technology used by the Digital-American Mobile Phone Service (DAMPS), Personal Digital Cellular and the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), TDMA is implemented differently on these three mentioned system and it is not compatible with each other. The technology divides each cellular channel into three time slots in order to increase the amount of data that can be carried.

Code division multiple access(CDMA)

Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is an alternative multiplexing scheme to FDMA with TDMA, The technology uses the whole allocated frequency range for a given service and multiplexes information for all the users in the spectrum at the same time. CDMA being a multiplexing technology allows numerous signals to occupy a single transmission channel thereby effectively using the available bandwidth. The technology is used in ultra-high-frequency (UHF) cellular telephone systems in the 800MHZ and 1.9-GHz bands.
CDMA is based on analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) and spread spectrum technology. An audio input is first digitized into binary elements and then the frequency of the transmitted signal is then made to vary according to a given pattern (code), so it can be intercepted only by a receiver whose frequency response is programmed with the same code, so it follows exactly along with the transmitter frequency. There are trillions of possible frequency-sequencing codes, which enhances privacy and makes cloning difficult. Operators like multilinks, starcom, realtel, and visaphone were all CDMA companies. But were are they today. That is a topic for another post. Please do check back for more information on telecoms.