stems. We provide in-depth technical specifications for all these standards. Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Standards for Cellular Systems Standards for Cellular Systems Standards are powerful engineering tools created through a process of human communication that is often politicized. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the standards underlying the systems we design and the equipment we install helps us do a better job of creating solutions that design around the weak spots and resolving problems on the systems we support. Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright© 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Source: CDMA CAPACITY AND QUALITY OPTIMIZATION Chapter General Cellular Standards The whole notion of standards is rarely explained and can be quite confusing. This chapter offers the what, why, and how of standards. It also explains why standards run into trouble and sometimes fail to solve problems or even end up creating new prob- lems. Engineers (those who write standards and those who work with them), execu- tives, and customers all have different opinions about standards, sometimes very strong ones. However, once we move past the opinions and understand standards prop- erly, they can be a valuable tool for specifying and developing high-quality systems and optimizing capacity. When we know the weak points and strong points of a standard, we know where to pay the most attention in planning new systems, and we know where to look when we need to solve problems. 9.1 The Role of Standards Without standards, communication would be inherently unreliable. Prior to the stan- dardization of English spelling, it was very difficult for a reader to be certain what word an author meant