89GlossaryAirtime - Actual time spent talking on the wirelessphone. Most carriers bill customers based onhow many minutes of airtime they use eachmonth.Antenna - A device for transmitting or receivingsignals. The size and shape of antennas isdetermined, in part, by the frequency of thesignal they receive. Wireless phones and thebase station must have antennas.Base Station - The fixed radio transmitter/receiver thatmaintains communications with mobileradio telephones within a given area.(Typically called a cell or cell site)CDMA - (Code Division Multiple Access) A spread-spectrum approach to digital transmission.With CDMA, each conversion is digitized andthen tagged with a code. The mobile phonedeciphers only a particular code to pick theright conversation off the air. The transmittedsignal is just above noise level across theavailable bandwidth.Channel - Communications signals transmit along pathscalled channels.Codec - Compression & Decompression.Deactivation - The process of rendering a wirelessphone inactive.