Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)

Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)

In the cases where continuous transmission is not required, there TDMA is used instead of FDMA. The features of TDMA include the following.

  • TDMA shares a single carrier frequency with several users where each users makes use of non-overlapping time slots.
  • Data transmission in TDMA is not continuous, but occurs in bursts. Hence handsoff process is simpler.
  • TDMA uses different time slots for transmission and reception thus duplexers are not required.
  • TDMA has an advantage that is possible to allocate different numbers of time slots per frame to different users.
  • Bandwidth can be supplied on demand to different users by concatenating or reassigning time slot based on priority.