Cellular and PCS

The personal communications concept arose after cellular networks were deployed. Personal Communications Service (PCS) technologies were designed to meet the needs of anytime, anywhere personalized communications. PCS networks were deployed utilizing cellular RF designs similar to cellular. However, many PCS carriers initially deployed larger groupings of smaller cell sites to cover densely populated urban areas. PCS also uses a higher portion of the RF spectrum (1900 MHz in the US versus 800 MHz for cellular). Being deployed after the initial cellular networks, PCS networks also initially had more advanced technologies than PCS, including SS7 network infrastructure for services such as calling number identification. However, cellular would soon catch up due to competitive pressures. In aggregate, there are now no substantive differences between the initial "cellular" networks and "PCS". In fact, they both utilize the same underlying technologies