Wireless Wisdom.

FYI, here's info on PCS, GSM, CDMA and TDMA.

They're everywhere, and today's wireless phone can act as a pager and a two-way radio and can access the Internet and retrieve your e-mail.

There are now more than 105 million wireless subscribers in the United States, according

As wireless phone use grows, so does the choice of service providers. Many markets throughout the U.S. now have five or more providers to choose from.

"When cell companies first set up, there were two in each market. Now there are probably six in the Indianapolis market alone, and everybody's fighting for the same piece of the pie," says Bruce Childs, spokesperson for Verizon Wireless.

Competitors try to differentiate themselves by offering an expansive coverage area and flexible service plans and features. Verizon, for example, tries to achieve this through such special programs as New for Two, which provides contract customers a new digital phone of up to $100 in value every two years.

Verizon customers can choose a rate plan based on a local, regional or national plan. Its Indiana plan, called DigitalChoice, covers all of Indiana (except Lake and Porter counties) plus Cincinnati, Lexington, Louisville and parts of western Kentucky. A nine-state regional plan, called SingleRate, is available, as is a 50-state plan.

Cellular One of Indiana, owned by BellSouth, is slated to rename itself Cingular Wireless in January when the joint venture between the wireless units of BellSouth and SBC takes effect, creating the nation's second-largest wireless carrier. The move follows the creation of Verizon Communications, the nation's largest wireless carrier, with the merger of GTE and Bell Atlantic's wireless units earlier this year.

Like Verizon, Cellular One has local, regional and national calling plans available. In mid-1999, it launched a new MyBiz Interactive Messaging service which is "basically like wireless e-mail in the palm of your hand," says Kim Sowder, Indiana's director of marketing. In a business setting, the service allows efficient communication among team members. In addition to e-mail--which notifies users when messages are received and read-MyBiz can send messages to a fax machine or send text-to-voice messages to those who don't subscribe to the service.

Back when wireless phones first hit the market, they offered mostly analog service transmitted through radio frequencies in whole conversations. Then came digital communications.

"Digital service converts your voice into ones and zeros, just like in your computer converts data." says Childs. "When a call gets to the other end it converts back to voice."

Digital providers say their technology is superior because it's more secure and because calls are clearer. For now, digital is offered in most big-city areas, whereas analog is often the sole choice in rural settings. Both formats utilize signal towers that are strategically placed around the world in "honeycomb" patterns, with each tower's coverage slightly overlapping the next. As callers move from one tower area to the next,, their call is handed off.

The CTIA provides a useful layman's guide to the confusing analog and digital worlds on its Web site at www.wow-com.com. Analog cellular phones use technology known as Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS) that transmits voice as FM radio signals and is available across 95 percent of the country.

Verizon and Sprint use the digital cellular format called CDMA, or Code Division Multiple Access. "It basically means we break conversation into bits and put code around them, then those bits get transmitted," says Childs. "When they get to the other end the code gets broken up and you can listen to the conversation."

Cellular One of Indiana, uses a similar process called TDMA, or Time Division Multiple Access, which chops the signal into pieces and assigns each one to a different time slot. And Voicestream Wireless uses the European standard, GSM, short for Global Systems for Mobile Communication and a type of TDMA service.

"GSM's main advantage is that customers can use their phone in other countries," says Lisa Cady, retail operations manager for Voicestream's Indiana market.

Sprint PCS has been focusing on beefing up such features as Internet access, and in October launched AOL instant messaging. "We work with a variety of content providers like AOL, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble to make our services consumer- and business-oriented, and to make your handset a total communications device," says Susan Kristof, public relations manager for Sprint PCS. PSC refers to Personal Communications Service, which is also a general term coined by the Federal Communications Commission for a broad family of all-digital wireless services.

In addition to on-line features many wireless providers offer extra incentives like paging and interactive messaging, plus features that can be found in residential phone service like caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding and voice mail. Sprint offers a variety of business suites that can be custom-built around an individual company's needs.

"We work with a lot of large corporations with customizing business-to-business applications," says Kristof. She has a phone equipped with a concept site for a pharmaceutical supplier, for example, where customers can place orders and check stocks using their mobile handset. The site provides product descriptions and sends orders directly to the company.

What makes buying wireless service complicated is the fact that the various technologies aren't necessarily compatible. Users must determine whether a particular type of service is available in the areas they plan to use the phone. If not, they either need to choose a different technology or use a telephone that is capable of operating on more than one type of wireless technology.

Childs compares Verizon's phone availability to driving in first, second or third gear. An analog phone is first gear, a dual-mode phone with analog and digital access is second gear, and third gear is a tri-mode phone that can access analog, digital and PCS service.

Perhaps the ultimate blend of technologies in one device comes from Nextel. While some wireless companies cater to everyone from teens to seniors, Kevin Gleason, general manager of Nextel, says his company's service is geared primarily towards business people. "Our customer is the business customer or a wireless family of users using our product to communicate more effectively," he says.

Nextel's service plans combine a number of business communications needs including wireless phone, pager, two-way radio and Internet, all in one hand-held device. "I think what we're seeing out there is wireless-communications customers becoming more sophisticated about what they need and desire," he says.

The two-way radio feature is particularly valuable for business people, says Gleason. "If someone has a problem at a job site, you can send a message to the boss and get feedback without ever picking up the phone," he says. "You pay only $5 a month for the service, and it saves the traditional cost of cellular calls."