In 2007 Coastel was merged with Petrocom and SOLA Communications to form Broadpoint Inc. and the network was converted to GSM.

The network was completely converted to GSM and its in all Spanish territory.

Movistar have a 3G network with UMTS technology, and offer services over GSM in places without 3G coverage.

As part of the introduction of mobile phone competition in Australia, the Australian government mandated GSM as the new standard for mobile networks, and required that Telstra close the AMPS network by 2000.

: GSM 900MHz cellular network in place ( 2004 ).

But, unlike the GSM standards, does not specify any internal aspects of the fixed network itself.

Unlike the GSM protocol, the DECT network specifications do not define cross-linkages between the operation of the entities ( for example, Mobility Management and Call Control ).

Mobile networks are diverse and include GSM 850 MHz ( largest ) as well as CDMA ( Bell South's old network before being acquired by Telefónica Spain which rebranded Movistar ), TDMA63.

The GSM standard was developed as a replacement for first generation ( 1G ) analog cellular networks, and originally described a digital, circuit switched network optimized for full duplex voice telephony.

The world's first GSM call was made by the Finnish prime minister Harri Holkeri to Kaarina Suonio ( mayor in city of Tampere ) on 1 July 1991 on a network built by Telenokia and Siemens and operated by Radiolinja.

Work begun in 1991 to expand the GSM standard to the 1800 MHz frequency band and the first 1800 MHz network became operational in the UK by 1993.

Also that year, Telecom Australia became the first network operator to deploy a GSM network outside Europe and the first practical hand-held GSM mobile phone became available.

In 1995, fax, data and SMS messaging services were launched commercially, the first 1900 MHz GSM network became operational in the United States and GSM subscribers worldwide exceeded 10 million.

In 2001 the first UMTS ( W-CDMA ) network was launched and worldwide GSM subscribers exceeded 500 million.

In 2002 the first multimedia messaging services ( MMS ) were introduced and the first GSM network in the 800 MHz frequency band became operational.

EDGE services first became operational in a network in 2003 and the number of worldwide GSM subscribers exceeded 1 billion in 2004.

By 2005, GSM networks accounted for more than 75 % of the worldwide cellular network market, serving 1. 5 billion subscribers.

The first HSUPA network was launched in 2007 and worldwide GSM subscribers exceeded two billion in 2008.

Macau phased out their GSM network in July 2012 ( except for roaming services ), making it the first region to decommission a GSM network.

Wave files can also contain data encoded with a variety of ( lossy ) codecs to reduce the file size ( for example the GSM or MP3 formats ).

UMTS and GSM / EDGE can share a Core Network ( CN ), making UTRAN an alternative radio access network to GERAN ( GSM / EDGE RAN ), and allowing ( mostly ) transparent switching between the RANs according to available coverage and service needs.

UMTS phones can use a Universal Subscriber Identity Module, USIM ( based on GSM's SIM ) and also work ( including UMTS services ) with GSM SIM cards.

A ( U ) SIM can be moved to another UMTS or GSM phone, and the phone will take on the user details of the ( U ) SIM, meaning it is the ( U ) SIM ( not the phone ) which determines the phone number of the phone and the billing for calls made from the phone.

The early 3G handsets and modems were specific to the frequencies required in their country, which meant they could only roam to other countries on the same 3G frequency ( though they can fall back to the older GSM standard ).

As mentioned files can be encoded with a variety of codecs to reduce the file size ( for example the GSM or MP3 codecs ).

In digital radio communications ( such as GSM ) multipath can cause errors and affect the quality of communications.

In cellular networks, such as UMTS and GSM, which operate in the UHF band, the value of the path loss in built-up areas can reach 110 -- 140 dB for the first kilometer of the link between the BTS and the mobile.

In fact GSM can be treated as an example of a PLMN system.

To avoid the dependency on Ethernet infrastructure, the UPSs can be connected directly to main control server by using GSM / GPRS channel also.

With GSM number portability now in place, LCR providers can no longer rely on using the network root prefix to determine how to route a call.

Once the mobile phone has accepted the IMSI-catcher as its base station the IMSI-catcher can deactivate GSM encryption using a special flag.

In areas such as tunnels and buildings, or anywhere else that GPS is not available or reliable, wireless carriers can deploy enhanced location determination solutions such as Co-Pilot Beacon for CDMA networks and LMU's for GSM networks.

Many services have moved from traditional UHF / VHF sets, which can be monitored externally, to more secure systems, such as those working on a GSM system, such as TETRA.

Most GSM mobile phones can dial emergency calls even when the phone keyboard is locked, the phone is without a SIM card, or an emergency number is entered instead of the PIN.

* Mobile station, in GSM system architecture is a station which can freely relocate without any restrictions

In July 2010, Stevenson published information about vulnerabilities in the A5 / 1 encryption algorithm used by most 2G GSM networks, and also showed the Kraken software, that demonstrates that the crypto indeed can be broken with modest hardware.

Mostly, GSM and 3G mobile handsets can easily be unlocked and used on any suitable network with any SIM card.

Unlike TDMA " time division multiple access ", a competing system used in 2G GSM, all radios can be active all the time, because network capacity does not directly limit the number of active radios.

Most mobile phones can be unlocked to work with any GSM, such as O < sub > 2 </ sub > or Orange ( in the UK ), but the phone may still display the original branding and may not support features of the new carrier ; besides the locking, phones may also have firmware installed on them which is specific to the network provider.

The term " roaming " originates from the GSM ( Global System for Mobile Communications ) sphere ; the term " roaming " can also be applied to the CDMA technology.

Using the example of WLAN / GSM roaming, the following scenarios can be differentiated ( cf.

Although these user / network scenarios focus on roaming from GSM Network Operator's network ( s ), clearly roaming can be bi-directional, i. e. from Public WLAN Operators to GSM Networks.