DataTAC

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mobile communication standards

GSM / UMTS (3GPP) Family

GSM (2G) GPRS EDGE (EGPRS) EDGE Evolution CSD HSCSD
UMTS (3G) HSPA HSDPA HSUPA HSPA+ UMTS-TDD TD-CDMA TD-SCDMA FOMA
UMTS Rev. 8 (Pre-4G) LTE HSOPA (Super 3G)


CDMA (3GPP2) Family

cdmaOne (2G)
CDMA2000 (3G) EV-DO
UMB (Pre-4G)


AMPS Family
AMPS (1G) TACS / ETACS
D-AMPS (2G)


Other Technologies
0G PTT MTS IMTS AMTS OLT MTD Autotel / PALM ARP
1G NMT Hicap CDPD Mobitex DataTAC
2G iDEN PDC CSD PHS WiDEN
Pre-4G iBurst HIPERMAN WiMAX WiBro GAN (UMA)


Channel Access Methods FDMA OFDMA TDMA SSMA CDMA


Frequency bands Cellular GSM UMTS PCS SMR

DataTAC is a wireless data network technology originally developed by Motorola and deployed in the United States as the ARDIS network. DataTAC was also marketed in the mid-1990s as MobileData by Telecom Australia^[1], and is still used by Bell Mobility as a paging network in Canada. It is an open standard for point to point wireless data communications, similar to Mobitex. Like Mobitex, it is mainly used in vertical market applications. One of the early DataTac devices was the Newton Messaging Card, a two-way pager connected to a PC card card using the DataTac network. The original BlackBerry devices, the RIM 850 and 857 also used the DataTac network.

In North America, DataTac is typically deployed in the 800MHz band. DataTAC was also deployed in the same band by Telecom Australia (now Telstra).

The DataTAC network runs at speeds up to 19.2 kbit/s, which is not sufficient to handle most of the wireless data applications available today. The network runs 25 kHz channels in the 800 MHz frequency bands. Due to the lower frequency bands that DataTAC uses, in-building coverage is typically better than with newer, higher frequency networks.