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WirelessCabin: Use Your Mobile Phone on Airplanes
securitas writes "What if didn't have to turn off your mobile phone when you travel by air? eWEEK's Matthew Broersma reports on a European Commission project to enable mobile phone use on airplanes. The technology works by creating short-range 'picocells' that force transmission output power to drop to 1/1000th of normal, reducing electronic interference, then using a satellite uplink. The WirelessCabin project members include the German Aerospace Centre, Siemens, Ericsson and Airbus. Initial trials will use 'GSM, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections' but will add CDMA and 3G standards. WirelessCabin is already making a picocell with CDMA2000. The first demonstrations are scheduled for this summer on Lufthansa long-haul flights with the A340-600 jet."
CDMA is both a mobile phone standard (IS-95) and a technology (Code Division Multiple Access) and if you're comparing "GSM" to "TDMA" to "CDMA" then you're refering to phone standards. CDMA the phone standard is junk, in all honesty, and is being phased out. The direct replacement for it is CDMA2000, which existing US IS-95 operators like Sprint PCS and Verizon are moving to.
CDMA the technology is rather better and is being used in a number of newer systems. GSM "version 2" is called UMTS, and has a configurable air interface which can be GSM's Time Division Multiple Access, EDGE (a more modern and efficient Time Division MA system), or a variant of Code Division Multiple Access (ie the CDMA the technology, not CDMA the mobile phone standard) called WCDMA, depending on the operator's preferences.
Only CDMA2000 is based upon CDMA the standard. UMTS is based upon GSM. TD-CDMA is a completely new system and isnt' based upon anything. It does use "CDMA the technology", but it certainly isn't related in any way, shape, or form to IS-95.