Cellular Phone Terms for Dummies

Do you sometimes find it difficult to understand all of today's cellular phone terminology? If you're like me, then it can definitely be tough to understand all this new technology and what it really means. Here is a good list of cellular phones terms and what they really mean in simple English.

1. Roaming
We will start with one that is easy. Roaming occurs when you are using your cellular phone outside of your calling plan's designated area. The costs for minutes can get ugly in a hurry. You can easily find yourself getting charged $1 - $2 per minute and sometimes even more.

2. Band
This term simply refers to the frequency that your cellular phone transmits on. Every area of the world is assigned its own band that it transmits from. In the ancient days of cellular phone use, if you had an American phone and tried using it in Germany, it wouldn't work because of the frequency band difference. Today, with the advent of new technology this is much less of an issue.

3. Bluetooth
Bluetooth is the name that describes how your information is sent from your cellular phone to your home computer.

4. WAP
This stands for Wireless Application Protocol, which is a fancy way of describing how your cellular phone can receive web messages off the Internet.

5. SIM Card
this stands for Subscriber Identification Module. A SIM card is like a "smart" card for your mobile phone. It stores all of your personal information on it. You can take the SIM card with you and put it on any cellular phone that allows the use of smart cards.

6. SMS
SMS is Short Message Service and this describes how you send text messages over your cellular phone. Sending text messages is all the rage these days with younger kids.

7. MMS
This is SMS on steroids, MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service is the upgraded Form of SMS. It allows you to send video, maps, and many other options over your cellular phone to other users who also have MMS options

8. IDEN
This is short for Integrated Digital Enhanced Network. Nextel is huge for this service on their phones. It's similar to a walkie - talkie service, but it doesn't have the limited range.