Bell Atlantic Corp’s Mobile Systems Inc arm is to conduct field trials of Code Division Multiple Access digital cellular technology in its Washington DC mobile phone system. The company says it plans to install a test system in part of its core cellular network using equipment from Qualcomm Inc of San Diego, and that the trial will begin later this month. The technology uses uses wide-band spread spectrum and promises capacity increases of from 10 to 20 times that of analogue systems. The US industry is leaning towards Time Division Multiple Access, which only triples capacity, but has agreed to give CDMA a chance to prove its claims.
