User Guide

CCS Technical Documentation System Module
RH-10
Issue 1 09/2002 Nokia Corporation Confidential Page 5
Useful Terms
AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service): The term used by AT&T's Bell Laboratories
(prior to the break-up of the Bell System in 1984) to refer to its cellular technology. The
AMPS standard has been the foundation for the industry in the United States, although it
has been slightly modified in recent years. 'AMPS-compatible' means equipment
designed to work with most cellular telephones.
Analog: The traditional method of modulating radio signals so that they can carry infor-
mation. Analog is a method of representing information such that data points can vary
continuously, rather than only in discrete steps, as with digital modulation. AM (ampli-
tude modulation) and FM (frequency modulation) are the two most common methods of
analog modulation. Though most U.S. cellular systems today carry phone conversations
using analog, some have begun offering digital transmission. See also Digital Modulation.
ANSI (The American National Standards Institute): A nonprofit, privately funded
membership organization that coordinates the development of U.S. voluntary national
standards and is the U.S. representative to non-treaty international standards-setting
entities including the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the Inter-
national Electrotechnical Commission.
Antenna: A device for transmitting and/or receiving signals. The size and shape of
antennas are determined, in large part, by the frequency of the signal they are receiving.
Antennas are needed on both the wireless handset and the base station.
Authentication: A process used by the wireless carriers to verify the identity of a mobile
station.
Browser: Software that moves documents on the World Wide Web to your computer,
PDA, or phone. See HDML, HTML, HTTP and WML.
CDG (CDMA Development Group): A consortium of companies that have joined
together to lead the adoption and evolution of CDMA wireless systems around the world.
CDM: Customer Development Manager. Regional Nokia CDMA personnel for direct cus-
tomer contact with Carriers, formerly known as Field Marketing.
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access): A spread-spectrum approach to digital
transmission. With CDMA, each conversation is digitized and then tagged with a code.
The mobile phone is then instructed to decipher only a particular code to pluck the right
conversation off the air. The process can be compared in some ways to an English-speak-
ing person picking out in a crowded room of French speakers the only other person who
is speaking English. See also Digital Modulation.
Packet Data: Technology that allows data files to be broken into a number of 'packets'
and sent along idle channels of existing cellular voice networks.
Circuit Switched: A switching technique that establishes a dedicated and uninter-
rupted connection between the sender and the receiver.