What is Spectrum

Recently the government was involved in a big crisis that involved the granting of licenses to the mobile users in various spectrums. What are these spectrums? and what is the difference between them? These questions are few that the following write up would clarify.

Spectrum
The spectrum in the field of communication refers to the radio spectrum. It refers to a range of radio frequencies. The bandwidth of a radio signal is the difference between the upper and lower frequencies of the signal. For example, in the case of a voice signal having a minimum frequency of 200 hertz (Hz) and a maximum frequency of 3,000 Hz, the bandwidth is 2,800 Hz (3 KHz).

There are many types of spectrum defined for different users. The spectrum of the signal defined for mobile operators are 1G, 2G, 3G, and 4G etc. The 1G operator used the technology based on wireless system. While 2G stands for second-generation wireless telephone technology, 2G networks are digital that mostly used GSM technology.

3G helped to simultaneously transfer both voice data (a telephone call) and non-voice data (such as downloading information, exchanging e-mail, and instant messaging 3G (third-generation) technology is used to enhance mobile phone standards. 3G services will enable video broadcast and data-intensive services such as stock transactions, e-learning and telemedicine through wireless communications. CDMA is more proficient in terms of technology as compared to GSM. While the GSM allowed the users to access the facilities such as roaming, flexibility in terms of use of handsets. GSM is generally used by 1G and 2G Spectrum users. However GSM technology became less efficient when it came to transferring data and other multimedia applications.

Thus CDMA operators got the benefits as it was efficient and equipped to handle the transfer of voluminous data and other communication network faster and accurately. In terms of the bandwidth it was assigned twice the spectrum allocated for the CDMA technology. 3G spectrum users are using the CDMA technology due to the speed and accuracy in data transferring.

A more advanced version of these technologies is being used for decoding the messages. It is the improved CDMA with wider band operation known as Wideband Code Multiple Divisions Access (WCMDA). WCDMA provides seamless global evolution from GSM with support of the worlds' largest mobile operators.

4G technology stands to be the future standard of wireless devices which is not being on widespread commercial use. Currently, Japanese company NTT DoCoMo and Samsung are testing 4G communication. These provide for facilities like WiMax and looped networks like LTT. These are based on the improved and extended technology of broadband wireless access (BWA) that use orthogonal frequency division multiple accesses (OFDMA).