CDMA2000

CDMA2000 is a hybrid 2.5G / 3G technology of mobile telecommunications standards that use CDMA, a multiple access scheme for digital radio, to send voice, data, and signalling data (such as a dialed telephone number) between mobile phones and cell sites. CDMA2000 is considered a 2.5G technology in 1xRTT and a 3G technology in EVDO.

CDMA (code division multiple access) is a mobile digital radio technology where channels are defined with codes (PN sequences). CDMA permits many simultaneous transmitters on the same frequency channel, unlike TDMA (time division multiple access), used in GSM and D-AMPS, and FDMA, used in AMPS ("analog" cellular). Since more phones can be served by fewer cell sites, CDMA-based standards have a significant economic advantage over TDMA- or FDMA-based standards.

CDMA2000 has a relatively long technical history, and remains compatible with the older CDMA telephony methods (such as cdmaOne) first developed by Qualcomm, a commercial company, and holder of several key international patents on the technology.

The CDMA2000 standards CDMA2000 1xRTT, CDMA2000 EV-DO, and CDMA2000 EV-DV are approved radio interfaces for the ITU's IMT-2000 standard and a direct successor to 2G CDMA, IS-95 (cdmaOne). CDMA2000 is standardized by 3GPP2.

CDMA2000 is a registered trademark of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA-USA) in the United States, not a generic term like CDMA. (This is similar to how TIA has branded their 2G CDMA standard, IS-95, as cdmaOne.)

CDMA2000 is an incompatible competitor of the other major 3G standard UMTS. It is defined to operate at 450 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1700 MHz, 1800 MHz, 1900 MHz, and 2100 MHz.

Below are the different types of CDMA2000, in order of increasing complexity: