 GLOSSARY
1xRTT
Is the name or
acronyms for the first phase in the development of the CDMA platform to the 3G
technology. The 1xRTT network allows for more capacity to transmit information
with fewer dropping of these informations. 1x stands for single radio channel
and RTT stands for Radion Transmission Technology.
AMPS
Short for
Advance-Mobile Phone-Service, a 1G
standard which operates in the 800-900MHz-frequency band. It is still widely
used in the United States.
AVL
Short for
Automatic Vehicle Location, This is another
name for real time vehicle tracking technology that never caught on during the
early development of the GPS vehicle tracking industry.
CDMA
Short for
Code-Division Multiple Access, a digital
cellular
technology that uses spread-spectrum techniques. Unlike competing
systems, such as GSM, that
use TDMA, CDMA
does not assign a specific frequency to each user. Instead, every
channel uses the full
available spectrum. Individual conversations are encoded with a pseudo-random
digital sequence. CDMA consistently provides better capacity for voice and data
communications than other commercial
mobile
technologies, allowing more subscribers to connect at any given time, and it
is the common
platform on which 3G technologies are built.
Cellular
Refers to
communications systems, especially the Advance Mobile Phone Service (AMPS),
that divide a geographic region into sections, called cells. The purpose
of this division is to make the most use out of a limited number of transmission
frequencies. Each connection, or conversation, requires its own dedicated
frequency, and the total number of available frequencies is about 1,000. To
support more than 1,000 simultaneous conversations, cellular systems allocate a
set number of frequencies for each cell. Two cells can use the same frequency
for different conversations so long as the cells are not adjacent to each other.
Geo-Fencing
With
geo-fencing, fleet managers can quickly pinpoint vehicles that venture into/out
of unauthorized areas. Users simply enter the address of a location or landmark
and radius parameters to create a circular geo-fence. When a vehicle enters or
exits the area, Network fleet records the date and time it crossed the
geo-fence. A historical exception report can be run to easily identify vehicles
that have crossed a geo-fence.
GPRS
Short for
General-Packet-Radio-Service,
a radio technology for GSM networks that adds
packet-switching protocols, shorter set-up time for ISP connections, and offer
the possibility to charge by amount of data sent rather than connect time. GPRS
promises to support flexible data transmission rates typically up to 20 or 30
Kbps (with a theoretical maximum of 171.2 Kbps), as well as continuous
connection to the network. A 2.5G enhancement to GSM, GPRS is the most
significant step towards 3G, needing similar business model, and service and
network architectures. GPRS started to appear in some networks during 2000.
GPS
Short for
Global-Positioning System,
a worldwide radio-navigation system that was
developed by the US. Department of Defense. In addition to military it is widely
used in marine and terrestrial navigation (for example car navigation systems).
GSM
Short for
Global System for Mobile
Communications, one of the leading digital cellular systems. GSM uses
narrowband TDMA, which allows eight simultaneous calls on the same radio
frequency.
Inmarsat D+
International Mobile
Satellite Organization (London); provider of global mobile satellite
communications for commercial, distress, and safety applications at sea, in the
air, and on land.
MIL Spec
Military
specifications; a guide in determining the quality requirements of products used
by the military services, published by the United States Department of Defense.
NDIS
Stands for
Network Device Interface Specification, a software-interface specification
developed by Microsoft and 3Com that mediates between network adapters and
higher-level protocols to enable the adapter to support multiple protocol
stacks.
PCMCIA
Personal
Computer Memory Card International Association. This group of manufacturers has
defined a set of hardware and software standards for memory and expansion PC
cards that are available for personal computers.
Poll
An explicit
request to a device for the value of one of its network variables.
Qwerty
Refers to the
standard data entry keyboard. Term comes from the first six letters at the upper
left of the keyboard.
RF
Short for Radio Frequency,
SMS
Short for Short Message
Service, available on digital GSM networks allowing text messages of up to 160
characters to be sent and received via the network operator's message center to
your mobile phone, or from the Internet, using a so-called "SMS gateway"
website. If the phone is powered off or out of range, messages are stored in the
network and are delivered at the next opportunity.
TDMA
Short for Time-Division Multiple
Access, a technology for
delivering digital wireless service using time-division multiplexing
(TDM). TDMA works by
dividing a radio frequency into time slots and then allocating slots to multiple
calls. In this way, a single frequency can support multiple, simultaneous data
channels. TDMA is used by the GSM digital cellular system.
WIFI
WiFi is an
acronym for "Wireless Fidelity" and is a trademark of The Wi-Fi Alliance
(www.wi-fi.org). The Wi-Fi Alliance (formerly WECA) is the global Wi-Fi
organization that created the Wi-Fi brand. A nonprofit organization, the
Alliance was formed in 1999 to certify interoperability of IEEE 802.11 products
and to promote them as the global, wireless LAN standard across all market
segments. The Wi-Fi Alliance has instituted a test suite that defines how member
products are tested to certify that they are interoperable with other Wi-Fi
CERTIFIED products.
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