PDC

PDC (Personal Digital Cellular)

A Japanese standard for digital mobile telephony in the 800 MHz and 1500 MHz bands. (Ericsson)

2G

Second generation of mobile wireless, which utilizes various digital protocols, including GSM, CDMA, TDMA, iDEN, and PDC. (Cingular)

2G (or 2-G) is short for second-generation wireless telephone technology.

The main differentiator to previous mobile telephone systems, retroactively dubbed 1G, is that the radio signals that 1G networks use are analog, while 2G networks are digital. Note that both systems use digital signaling to connect the radio towers (which listen to the handsets) to the rest of the telephone system.

Flavors of 2G

2G technologies can be divided into TDMA-based and CDMA-based standards depending on the type of multiplexing used. The main 2G standards are:

* GSM (TDMA-based), originally from Europe but used worldwide
* IDEN (TDMA-based), proprietary network used by Nextel in the United States and Telus Mobility in Canada
* IS-136 aka D-AMPS, (TDMA-based, commonly referred as simply TDMA in the US), used in the Americas
* IS-95 aka cdmaOne, (CDMA-based, commonly referred as simply CDMA in the US), used in the Americas and parts of Asia
* PDC (TDMA-based), used exclusively in Japan