– Analog technology is a system of electronic transmission that adds signals of varying frequency or amplitude to carrier waves of a given frequency of alternating electromagnetic current. Broadcast and phone transmission have conventionally used this technology. The term originated because the modulation of the carrier wave is analogous to the fluctuations of the voice itself.
– Digital describes electronic technology that processes data in terms of two states, positive (expressed by the number 1) and non-positive (expressed by zero). Each of these digits is referred to as a bit, and a string of bits that a computer can address as a group is a byte. In most computer systems there are eight bits to a byte.
– CDMA (code division multiple access) is a wireless transmission technology that, after digitizing data, spreads it out over the entire bandwidth it has available. Multiple calls are overlaid on the channel, with each assigned a unique sequence code.
– TDMA (time division multiplexing code) digitizes and compresses data, then sends it down a channel with two other streams of user data, each in its own time slot.
– GSM (global system for mobile communication) is the de facto wireless telephone standard in Europe. It is a variation of TDMA.
