TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Cell Phone Use Coming for Airbus Fliers

Re: Cell Phone Use Coming for Airbus Fliers

Marcus Didius Falco (falco_marcus_didius@yahoo.co.uk)
Mon, 21 Feb 2005 02:48:44 -0500

Joseph <JoeOfSeattle@yahoo.com> wrote about Re: Cell Phone Use Coming
for Airbus Fliers on Sat, 19 Feb 2005 02:13:30 -0800

> On 18 Feb 2005 03:20:02 -0000, John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:

>> Some North American GSM phones can do 800 or 1800, but most can't.

> North American GSM phones cannot do GSM 1800 only GSM "850" or GSM
> 1900. GSM 1800 is a Euro-Asian frequency.

Some phones are "Tri-band" and include the 1800 band. The ancient
Motorola Timeport is an example. Most of the more advanced phones sold
for use by international travelers are triband, and every seller will
have one or two. I believe most older US phones cannot do 850, but
rather do 1900 or 900/1800/1900, which is the official definition of
"tri-band". Those that include 850 are quad-band

> And before anyone gets upset GSM 800 is the same thing as GSM 850.
> For some reason unknown to me when GSM was introduced to use on
> cellular networks it was decided to call it GSM 850 even though it
> uses the same transmit and receive frequencies as other cellular
> technologies such as CDMA or TDMA (IS-136.)

The official definition, found at
http://www.gsmworld.com/technology/glossary.shtml
says that 850 and 900 are different:

GSM

Global System for Mobile communications, the second generation digital
technology originally developed for Europe but which now has in excess
of 71 per cent of the world market. Initially developed for operation
in the 900MHz band and subsequently modified for the 850, 1800 and
1900MHz bands. GSM originally stood for Groupe Speciale Mobile, the
CEPT committee which began the GSM standardisation process

and

Tri-band

Refers to a mobile phone able to operate on the three internationally
designated GSM frequencies- 900, 1800 and 1900MHz

I believe they are using different parts of the 800-900 band.

See:

http://www.gsmworld.com/technology/spectrum/frequencies.shtml

In principle the GSM system can be implemented in any frequency band.
However there are several bands where GSM terminals are, or will
shortly be available. Furthermore, GSM terminals may incorporate one
or more of the GSM frequency bands listed below to facilitate roaming
on a global basis.

Frequency Range
GSM400 450.4 - 457.6 MHz paired with 460.4 - 467.6 MHz
or
478.8 - 486 MHz paired with 488.8 - 496 MHz

GSM 850 824 - 849 MHz paired with 869 - 894 MHz

GSM900 880 - 915 MHz paired with 925 - 960 MHz

GSM1800 1710 - 1785 MHz paired with 1805 - 1880 MHz

GSM1900 1850 - 1910 MHz paired with 1930 - 1990 MHz

In the above bands mobile stations transmit in the lower frequency
sub-band and base stations transmit in the higher frequency sub-band.

In any event, some of the latest phones (such as the new Motorola Razr
V3) claim to be "quad-band."

To see which companies use which bands, see the following.

GSM Worldwide Live Networks illustrates the spread of live GSM
networks worldwide. Included is the operating frequency (e.g. GSM 900,
GSM 1800 or GSM 1900) and the date the service went live. At present,
Tanzania is the only country with GSM 400, and it also has GSM
900/1800. TANZANIA Celtel Tanzania Limited celtel TANZANIA GSM
900/1800/400 Nov 2001

The file is available to view as a Acrobat PDF file or in HTML.

Download GSM Global Networks on Air (829k PDF).
http://www.gsmworld.com/news/statistics/netsonair.pdf OR

View GSM Global Networks on Air as an HTML page. (This page is large
(675k) and may take a while to completely load.)
http://www.gsmworld.com/news/statistics/networks_complete.shtml

United States Networks are identifed as GSM 850/1900, 1900 or as
850. The 850s or 850/1900s are mostly small companies (often with
Farmer or Coop or Rural in their name) and the 1900s include the
larger companies.

Those in the UK are identified as GSM 900/1800 or as GSM 1800. Most of
the tri-band phones Many European phones are dual band:

Dual band

Mobile phones which support transmission and reception of calls on the
900MHz and 1800MHz bands with seamless handover between the two
frequency bands.

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