GSM World Wide Abbreviations ( letter A )

Mobile Terms & Acronyms

"Wireless technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace and along with it so too does the language used by the wireless industry - which at times can leave even the most accomplished wireless practitioner confused or bemused" - Rob Conway, CEO GSM Association The following is a compiled list of mobile terms and acronyms taken from a GSM Association supported publication. For a hardback copy of Mobile Terms & Acronyms please contact GSM Publications.

1G

The first generation of analogue mobile phone technologies including AMPS, TACS and NMT

2G

The second generation of digital mobile phone technologies including GSM, CDMA IS-95 and D-AMPS IS-136

2.5G

The enhancement of GSM which includes technologies such as GPRS

3G

The third generation of mobile phone technologies covered by the ITU IMT-2000 family

3GPP

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project, a grouping of international standards bodies, operators and vendors with the responsibility of standardising the WCDMA based members of the IMT-2000 family

3GPP2

The counterpart of 3GPP with responsibility for standardising the CDMA2000-based members of the IMT-2000 family. 3GPP2 is spearheaded by ANSI

8PSK

Octantal Phase Shift Keying

A5/1/2/3/8X

Encryption algorithms for GSM networks

AAL

ATM Adaptation Layer

ABR

Available Bit Rate

A-bis

Interface between the BSC and BTS in a GSM network

AB

Access Burst; used for random access and characterised by a longer guard period to allow for burst transmission from a MS that does not know the correct timing advance when first contacting a network

ACTE

Approvals Committee for Terminal Equipment

ACTS

Advanced Communications Technologies and Services – a European technology initiative

ACU

Antenna Combining Unit

ADPCM

Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation; a form of voice compression that typically uses 32kbit/s

AFC

Automatic Frequency Control

AGCH

Access Grant Channel; downlink only, BTS allocates a TCH or SDCCH to the MS, allowing it access to the network

Air interface

In a mobile phone network, the radio transmission path between the base station and the mobile terminal

A-interface

Interface between the MSC and BSS in a GSM network

AM

Amplitude Modulation

AMPS

Advanced Mobile Phone System, the analogue mobile phone technology used in North and South America and in around 35 other countries. Operates in the 800MHz band using FDMA technology

AMR

Adaptive Multi-Rate codec. Developed in 1999 for use in GSM networks, the AMR has been adopted by 3GPP for 3G

Analogue

The representation of information by a continuously variable physical quantity such as voltage

ANSI

American National Standards Institute. An non-profit making US organisation which does not carry out standardisation work but reviews the work of standards bodies and assigns them category codes and numbers

ANSI-136

See D-AMPS

API

Application Program Interface

AoC

Advice of Charge

ARIB

Association of Radio Industries and Businesses. An organisation established by Japan’s Ministry of Posts and Communications to act as the standardisation authority for radio communication and broadcasting

ARPU

Average Revenue Per User

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ASIC

Application Specific Integrated Circuit

ASP

Application Service Provider

Asymmetric Transmission

Data transmissions where the traffic from the network to the subscriber is at a higher rate than the traffic from the subscriber to the network

A-TDMA

Advanced Time Division Multiple Access

ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode; a multiplexed information transfer and switching method in which the data is organised into fixed length 53-octet cells and transmitted according to each application’s instantaneous need

AUC

Authentication Centre; the element within a GSM network which generates the parameters for subscriber authentication

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From: Mohamed Serry