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Home > Consumer Information > The Difference Between Cellular & PCS
Understanding the Difference Between Cellular and PCS Services
True PCS (Personal Communications Services) is defined as a combination of services like
paging, caller ID and e-mail. PCS has an emphasis on personal service and extended mobility,
often used in place of "digital cellular".
Cellular service was designed for use in cars. PCS was designed for better mobility from
the ground up. PCS has smaller cells and therefore requires a larger number of antennas to
cover a geographic area. PCS phones use frequencies between 1.85 and 1.99 GHz (1850 MHz to 1990 MHz).
Technically, cellular systems in the United States operate in the 824-MHz to
894-MHz frequency bands; PCS operates in the 1850-MHz to 1990-MHz bands.
And while it is based on TDMA, PCS has 200-kHz channel spacing and
eight time slots instead of the typical 30-kHz channel spacing and three
time slots that digital cellular has.
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How Cell Phones Work
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