Digital Wireless Standards (PCS)

Digital Wireless Standards (PCS):

Japan (PHS)Personal Handyphone System is the Japanese version of the U.S.’s PCS (Personal Communications Services) with two key differences. It’s not as powerful as PCS. You can’t use a PHS phone in a rapidly moving vehicle, since there is no cell-handoff (i.e. it won’t move you from one cell to another) and thus, if you move outside your cell with PHS, you lose connection. PHS is a perfect mobile phone for pedestrians in high density cities like Tokyo, as long as they don’t move around a lot during the course of a call.

US (IS-136,IS-95, PCS1900, PACS)
IS-136: Also known as DigitalAMPS (D-AMPS). The EIA/TIA Interim Standard which succeed IS-54, and which addresses digital cellular systems employing TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access). IS-136 also specifies a DCCH (Digital Control CHannel) in support of new features controlled by a signaling and control channel between the cell site and the terminal equipment. IS-136 also allows analog AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) to coexist with North America TDMA on the same cellular network, sharing frequency bands and channels, which supports a smooth transition from analog to digital cellular. IS-136 gave rise to a high-tier standard for PCS (Personal Communications Services), developed by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) comprising representatives from ATIS and the TIA. High-Tier PCS supports fast-moving vehicular traffic, much like traditional cellular.

IS-95: A TIA standard for North American cellular systems based on CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), and is widely deployed in North America and Asia. IS-95a defines what generally is known as cdmaOne, which supports voice and 14.4 Kbps data rates. IS-95b supports data rates up to 115 Kbps.

PCS1900: A GSM system offering 148 full-duplex voice channels per cell. The system operates in the 1.9 GHz band used in the United States and is now known as GSM 1900.


PACS: Personal Communications Access System is a cellular system providing limited, regional mobility in a given area. It provides mobility between that of a cordless phone and a full-fledged cellular system. Originally developed by Bell Labs in the early 1980’s, PACS is a comprehensive framework for the deployment of PCS and applies to both licensed and unlicensed applications. Now it is approved by the TIA and Exchange Carriers Standards Associations. Today’s currently implemented versions of PCS are “up-banded” versions of the 900 MHz AMPS and GSM cellular standards.


Europe (DCS1800)
Digital Cellular System at 1800 MHz. A GSM standard for cellular mobile telephony established by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) for operation at 1800 MHz. In short, DCS 1800 is GSM adopted to the 1800 MHz frequency b and. This means that existing GSM phones won’t be able to talk on the DCS 1800.