One thing I've come to notice over the past few years dealing with GSM and now into UMTS is the amount of acronyms for absolutely everything. Maybe you know a few, maybe you just ignore them! Either way I'm going to put a few on here. As I remember them I'll edit and re-post, if there's anything you don't know and want to, post it up and I'll try and find out for you.

Enjoy the reading!!

1G
The first generation of analogue mobile phone technologies including AMPS, TACS and NMT

2G
The second generation of digital mobile phone technologies including GSM, CDMA IS-95 and D-AMPS IS-136

2.5G
The enhancement of GSM which includes technologies such as GPRS

3G
The third generation of mobile phone technologies covered by the ITU IMT-2000 family

BTS & WBTS
Base Transceiver Station; the network entity which communicates with the mobile station.

Cell
The area covered by a cellular base station. A cell site may sectorise its antennas to service several cells from one locationCell site
The facility housing the transmitters/receivers, the antennas and associated equipment

FDD
Frequency Division Duplex; a radio technique which uses paired spectrum; UMTS has an FDD element

GPRS
General Packet Radio Service; standardised as part of GSM Phase 2+, GPRS represents the first implementation of packet switching within GSM, which is a circuit switched technology. GPRS offers theoretical data speeds of up to 115kbit/s using multislot techniques. GPRS is an essential precursor for 3G as it introduces the packet switched core required for UMTS

Handoff/Handover or HO
The transfer of control of a cellular phone call in progress from one cell to another, without any discontinuity

UMTS
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System; the European entrant for 3G; now subsumed into the IMT-2000 family as the WCDMA technology.

USIM
Universal Subscriber Identity Module; the 3G equivalent of the GSM SIM

TDD
Time Division Duplex; a radio technology for use in unpaired spectrum. WCDMA/UMTS includes a band for TDD mode usage and both PHS and DECT use this technology

WCDMA
Wideband CDMA; the technology created from a fusion of proposals to act as the European entrant for the ITU IMT-2000 family


Phew... as i say, got something you don't know? Post it on here..