Appendix82Glossary of TermsAirtime - Actual time spent talking on the wireless phone. Mostcarriers bill customers based on how many minutes ofairtime they use each month.AMPS - (Advanced Mobile Phone System) The standard Analogwireless telephone service.Antenna - A device for transmitting or receiving signals. Thesize and shape of antennas is determined, in part, by thefrequency of the signal they receive. Wireless phones andthe base station must have antennas.Base Station - The fixed radio transmitter / receiver thatmaintains communications with mobile radio telephoneswithin a given area. (Typically seen as cell or cell site.)CDMA – (Code Division Multiple Access) A spread-spectrumapproach to digital transmission. With CDMA, eachconversion is digitized and then tagged with a code. Themobile phone deciphers only a particular code to pick theright conversation off the air. The transmitted signal is justabove noise level across the available bandwidth.Channel - Communications signals transmit along paths calledchannels.Deactivation - The process of rendering a wireless phoneinactive.DTMF - (Dual-tone Multi-frequency) You send DTMF signalswhen you enter numbers by pressing the digit keys.
