CDMA
Code-Division Multiple Access.
CDMA is a digital wireless technology. It is a general type of technology, implemented in many specific technologies. But the term "CDMA" is also commonly used to refer to one specific family of technologies (IS-95 and CDMA2000) used in the US by Sprint and Verizon Wireless. This technology competes with GSM, used by AT&T and T-Mobile.
CDMA is a "spread spectrum" technology, which means that it spreads the information contained in a particular signal of interest over a much greater bandwidth than the original signal.
Unlike many competing technologies, CDMA has no hard limit for the number of users who may share one base station (tower). Instead, with CDMA, additional users can connect until the base station determines that call quality would suffer beyond a set limit.
CDMA (IS-95) systems have been in commercial operation since 1995. CDMA networks operate in the 800 and 1900 MHz frequency bands with primary markets in the Americas and Asia.
IS-95 CDMA technology has also been called cdmaOne and cdma2000.
