What is GSM ?
GSM systems are used in nearly 200 countries (with 600 million subscribers) worldwide, from Europe (where the standard originated) throughout Africa, Asia and Australasia.
GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) leads the world as the fastest growing, most reliable and advanced digital technology available in the marketplace today. GSM provides integrated voice mail, high-speed data, fax, paging and short message services capabilities. GSM customers enjoy secure communications, and GSM offers unparalleled call privacy and fraud prevention.
GSM phones work with a small electronic chip called the SIM card. The SIM card holds the phone number assigned by the service provider, your phonebook and other registration information. GSM operates on multiple frequency bands around the world - 900 Mhz and 1800Mhz, used in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and South America ; 850 Mhz and 1900 Mhz, used in the.North America and South America. Different service providers operate on different frequency within the country. For example, T-mobile operates on 1900 mhz in the USA, while Cingular operates on 1900 mhz or 850 mhz. When selecting your cell phone make sure that you select a phone that operates on your service provider's band.
Dual-band
A dual-band phone operates at both the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz spectrum. Dual-band works in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and much of South America.
Tri-band
A tri-band phone operates on three frequency bands, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz, allowing you to use it in Europe, Africa, Asia, nearly all of North America, Australia and New Zealand.
Quad-band
A quad-band phone allows you to roam almost anywhere globally. It covers the 850 Mhz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz frequency ranges. Many countries in South America only have 850 MHz GSM service while both 1900 MHZ and 850 MHz GSM services are supported in the USA. 99% of all countries use the GSM standard. WE believe eventually GSM will be the only cell phone standard in the world.
Unlocked GSM Phones
Unlocked GSM phones are not locked to a specific service provider.Unlocked phones will work with any GSM service provider that is supported by the phone's frequency band. Normally, all the phones sold by the service providers are locked to be used with their service only. For example, a locked phone from T-mobile wouldn't work with Cingular's service.
2G Network
The 2G phase began in the 1990s and much of this technology is still in use. The 2G cell phone features digital voice encoding. Examples include CDMA and GSM. Since its inception, 2G technology has steadily improved, with increased bandwidth, packet routing, and the introduction of multimedia.
3G Network
3G is an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) specification for the third-generation mobile communications technology that was created for high-speed transfer of data and multimedia content, such as video, downloads, music and interactive games. 3G aims to increase bandwidth up to 384 Kbps when a device is stationary or moving at pedestrian speed, 128 Kbps in a car, and 2 Mbps in fixed applications. 3G will work over wireless air interfaces, such as GSM, TDMA, and CDMA. The new EDGE service was developed specifically to meet the bandwidth needs of 3G.
The first pre-commercial 3G network was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan branded FOMA, in May 2001 on a pre-release of W-CDMA-GA3Y technology. The first commercial launch of 3G was also by NTT DoCoMo in Japan on October 1, 2001. The second network to go commercially live was by SK Telecom in South Korea on the CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology in January 2002. By May 2002 the second South Korean 3G network was launched by KTF on EV-DO and thus the Koreans were the first to see competition among 3G operators.
