iDEN Technology by R4R Team

iDEN Technology:

iDEN  Stand for(integrated Enhanced Digital Network) is a digital trunked radio developed by Motorola which provides its users the benefits of a trunked radio and a cellular-like telephone services. It was first introduced in 1994. The technology supports multiple services in single devices. The Four-in-one service allows business users to take advantage of advanced wireless technologies with one pocket-sized digital handset that combines: two-way digital radio; digital wireless phone; short message services; and data capabilities leveraging Internet access technology.

iDEN phones use several communications technologies. An iDEN phone's primary communications technology is Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). A TDMA transmission divides an iDEN phone's signal into three parts, thereby decreasing the individual load of each stream. European units use the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) standard, which separates the stream into eight parts. There is also a smaller version of this technology called Harmony.

iDEN places more users in a given spectral space, compared to analog cellular and two-way radio systems, by using speech compression and time division multiple access TDMA. Using these technique, iDEN can achieve 6 time slots in one 25 KHz.

iDEN handsets use SIM cards, just like GSM, and, in fact, the interconnect-side of the network uses GSM signaling for call set-up and mobility management, with the protocol stack modified to support iDEN's additional features. With its sleek and compact form factor, the iDEN handset looks similar to cellular handset. Various handset model are available. The iDEN handset features include color display, built-in GPS, WAP support, ruggedized (for some model), dual mode GSM/iDEN (some model) and other features comparable to cellular handset.

iDEN phones can run software programmed in J2ME code. This allows iDEN units to expand functionally. With this special coding, an iDEN phone can even function as a portable gaming unit.

There are also only two lines of Motorola phones that support this technology – the Condor and Falcon lines. The Condor line has been discontinued, and, prior to its discontinuation, was only supported by Nextel and Southern LINC. The Falcon line has been supported by Nextel, Southern LINC, and Boost Mobile. As a result, getting support for this technology is difficult at best – most likely due to licensing costs and higher load on carriers.



iDEN Features:

From end user point of view, iDEN provides, among others, the following features and services:

Group call
Individual call
Telephone Interconnect Call
High Speed Wireless packet data (96 kbps over-the-air)
Short Data Services
Integrated Voice and Data
Spectrum Utilization


Frequency Band:

At present, iDEN supports frequency band in 800 MHz Band