(DECT, formerly ".. European ..") A standard developed by the european telecommunication standard institute from 1988, governing pan-European digital mobile telephony. DECT covers wireless pbxs, telepoint, residential cordless telephones, wireless access to the public switched telephone network, Closed User Groups (CUGs), local area networks, and wireless local loop.

DECT defines only the radio connection between two points and can be used for remote access to public and private networks. Other mobility standards, such as gsm, tacs, and dcs 1800 add the necessary switching, signaling, and management functions that are not specified by DECT.

The DECT Common Interface radio standard is a multicarrier time division multiple access, time division duplex (MC-TDMA-TDD) radio transmission technique using ten radio frequency channels from 1880 to 1930 MHz, each divided into 24 time slots of 10ms, and twelve full-duplex accesses per carrier, for a total of 120 possible combinations.

A DECT base station (an RFP, Radio Fixed Part) can transmit all 12 possible accesses (time slots) simultaneously by using different frequencies or using only one frequency. All signaling information is transmitted from the RFP within a multiframe (16 frames). voice signals are digitally encoded into a 32 kbit/s signal using adaptive differential pulse code modulation.

The handover process is requested autonomously by the portable terminal and the Radio Fixed Parts, according to the carrier signal levels. A "Generic Access Profile" defines a minimum set of requirements for the support of speech telephony.

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