What is PCS?
PCS, or a personal communications service, is the designation for a portion of the radio frequency band that is devoted to the use of wireless phone service in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Here is some background on the development of the concept of the PCS, and how PCS continues to function today. Early in the development of cell phone technology, the need to assign particular bandwidths to the signals that would be used for cellular services was evident. To this end, the need to carve out a radio band that would be for the exclusive use of cellular wireless networks was studied. Ultimately, the conclusions of the FCC in the United States and Industry Canada was that the designation of the 1850-1990 MHz range for use with cellular telephone service would ensure there was no interference with frequencies that were used for public broadcast or governmental functions. During 1994, both countries established the 1900 MHz band as the standard for use in any wireless network based
Personal Communication Services (PCS) is the name given to a number of wireless technologies and services that typically operate in the 2 GHz range. The FCC has allocated 140 MHz of space between 1850 MHz and 1990 MHz for broadband PCS and 3 MHz in the 900 MHz range for narrowband PCS. This space has been licensed by the FCC to the highest bidder in an auction process that began in 1994 and completed in January 1997. Auction winners are now in a build-out process to complete their networks and start earning back some of the billions they paid into the U.S. Treasury for these frequencies. Big players are Sprint PCS, AT&T, and PrimeCo, as well as others listed below. PCS FREQUENCY ALLOCATIONS TypeLower (MHz)Upper (MHz) Narrowband900901 Narrowband930931 Narrowband940941 Broadband18501910 Unlicensed19101930 Broadband19301990 Wireless handsets transmit between 1850 MHz and 1910 MHz. Base stations transmit between 1930 MHz and 1990 MHz. STANDARDS There’s been a lot of consolidation in the wi
