Digital, Cellular, PCS Whats the Difference

Analog
Analog was the first cellular system made available to consumers. The industry is very mature, i.e. fully developed, and covers almost all metropolitan, suburban, and slightly developed areas. It's cheaper to use but has a very limited capacity. Call clarity is ok but not as clear as digital service. If you have a dual mode phone and you are in an analog/digital service area your phone will choose the digital service. If you are traveling and move outside of the digital service area you will handoff to an analog service. Depending on your service provider you may incur an additional charge. If you start the call in an analog only area, and roam into a digital area, the handoff will not occur.

Digital and PCS
Digital encompasses 800MHZ digital service and 1900 MHZ PCS service. Digital has 4 different types of communication CDMA, TDMA, GSM, and ESMR. (see Digital Communications 101). As of this writing 1900 MHZ services have far less users. This means less network congestion, clearer and stronger calls. As the service receives greater usage in the future, this advantage will become less noticeable. Digital cellular generally just includes phone service. PCS service usually includes data, Short Messaging Systems (SMS), numeric and text messaging, voice mail and/or other services bundled together.

While they are still making analog only phones the majority are now analog/digital allowing the phone to work on both analog and digital services, this is known as dual mode. The ability to work on both the 800 and 1900 MHZ services is known as dual band. So the best option to have would be dual band/ dual mode phone allowing your phone to switch and choose the best service available and when the one it was using becomes unavailable.