The invention of the telephone is credited to American Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson in the mid-to-late 19th Century. Although Bell ultimately prevailed in the early signs of patent wars to come in the tech industry, there are a number of inventors who helped contributed technological and conceptual advancements that furthered telephone technology in …
An IDEN, or Integrated Dispatch Enhanced Network, is a radio service provided by some mobile telephones that allows subscribers to talk to nearby subscribers who have similar phones without dialing their individual numbers. IDENs are often provided as a free service on modern mobile phones, such as Nextel, or as a premium service that can …
Prepaid cell phones are mobile phones that are not associated with a long term contract and, therefore, do not incur the overage charges and late fees associate with contract plans. Prepaid cell phones are paid before the mobile service is activated on a monthly or “pay-as-you-go” basis and are deactivated when the service term expires …
TL1 (Transaction Language 1) is an element management protocol used primarily in the telecommunications industry. TL1 was designed by Bellcore (now Telecordia) in 1984 for use with its OSS (Operations Support System), NMA. TL1 is an MML (Man Machine Language), which means that TL1 messages should be readable and writeable by humans as well as …
Cell phone signal boosters (or cellular repeaters) are bidirectional amplifiers designed to boost the mobile phone reception using internal signal amplifiers, reception antennas and rebroadcast antennas. External antennas collect good cellular signal, and then it is transmitted to an amplifier, which retransmits the signal locally. This process results in much better signal. Rural areas often …
ESN (Electronic Serial Number) An Electronic Serial Number is a code created to identify mobile devices. An ESN is 32 bits long, and the distribution of information in those bits has changed as the standard has evolved. The first 8 bits originally represented the manufacturer code, leaving 24 bits for the manufacturer to assign codes …
What is Ground Start? Ground Start or GST is a signaling technique for telephony from a terminal, or a subscriber local loop, to a telephone exchange in which a party gets a dial tone by momentarily grounding one side of a (telephone) circuit. The Ring side of a wire pair is usually the side that …
A SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card is a type of interface card that is found in most modern cell phones and contains the user’s account information as well as some types of media, such as contacts, pictures, and sometimes ringtones. A SIM card contains an ICCID, or Integrated Circuit Card ID, number that identifies the …
SMS, or Short Messaging Service, is a text-based messaging service that is used by over 2.4 billion mobile phone users worldwide. SMS allows users to send and receive text-based messages, pictures, videos, and audio clips from other mobile phone users and desktop computer users who have applications that can interact with mobile phones. SMS differs …
The MIN (Mobile Identification Number) is a number that uniquely identifies a mobile telephone subscriber. MINs are 34-bits in length. The first 10 bits are sometimes known as MIN2, while the last 24 bits are referred to as MIN1. Together they are simply known as the MIN. In the United States, the MIN is derived …