About GSM Technology

GSM or Global System for Mobile Communications is obviously the most widely used mobile phone technology in the world. As a matter of fact, mobile phones rely on a mobile phone service provider’s GSM network by locating mobile towers in the vicinity.

GSM’s origins can be traced back to the early eighties when the CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunication Administrations) created the GSM (Groupe Special Mobile) with a view to design a comprehensive mobile technology across Europe.

Approximately 80 per cent of the wireless voice call consumers across the world use GSM technology today. These figures have been given by the GSMA (GSM Association) that represents the global mobile communications industry’s interests.

Major mobile phone carriers operating in the world today such as AT&T, T-Mobile depend on GSM for their mobile phone networks while others such as Virgin Mobile, Sprint and Verizon Wireless engage the competing CDMA data standard.

GSM offers the consumers broader international roaming capabilities than other network technologies in the US for everyday and practical purposes. The technology is simply capable of converting a mobile phone into a world phone. A further advanced GSM technology incorporates the older TDMA standard.

Roaming contracts signed with other GSM operators by the GSM carriers enable them to cover rural areas more comprehensively than the rival CDMA operators that compete with the GSM carriers.

Another advantage of the GSM technology is the usage of Subscriber Identity Module cards (SIM cards) A SIM card that acts as the digital identity of the consumer ties the mobile phone operator’s network rather than to the device itself. The benefit here is its allowing easy exchange from a phone to another without the activation of a fresh mobile phone service.