Cellular & Wireless Glossary

Follow-Me Roaming: The ability of a wireless system to forward incoming calls to a cellphone that is roaming outside its home service area without any pre-notification to the carrier.

Frequency: The number of times a wave-like radio signal changes from the very positive to the very negative charge per second.

Frequency reuse: The ability to use the same frequencies repeatedly across a cellular system, made possible by the basic design approach for cellular. Since each cell is designed to use radio frequencies only within its boundaries, the same frequencies can be reused in other cells not far away with little potential for interference. The reuse of frequencies is what enables a cellular system to handle a huge number of calls with a limited number of channels.

GHZ: GigaHertz - One GigaHertz is equal to a billion hertz.

GPRS (General Packet Radio Service): An emerging technology standard for high speed data transmission over GSM networks.

GSM (global system for mobile communications): A digital cellular or PCS network used in over 60 countries. Other cellphone technology are CDMA and TDMA.