Voice

The most well known application for wireless communications is voice communications. Voice communication can be telephony; wide area (cellular), business location (wireless office) or home cordless (residential) or voice paging, dispatch (fleet coordination) or group voice (audio broadcasting). Service rates for voice applications typically involve an initial connection charge, basic monthly minimum fee, more likely a monthly access fee that includes some free airtime minutes, plus an airtime usage charge. When the customer uses service in a system other than their home registered system (roaming), there may be a daily roaming fee and/or a higher per minute roaming usage fee. A sample service charge is shown in table 4.5.

Some of the latest changes to the cellular technologies allow for full rate and half rate voice service. Full rate services consume more bandwidth than half rate voice. This should result in a lower usage cost for half rate systems. Dispatch services are now starting. Dispatch services regularly allow for only half duplex operation where users can communicate only in one direction at a time. The primary advantage of dispatch service is the ability for multiple users to be simultaneously connected to each other (group call). The billing rates for dispatch services usually involve a reduced per minute rate for each subscriber that is connected to a group call.

Messaging