Photo courtesy of Cellular Online 

Short for Code-Division Multiple Access which is being used by cellular providers like Sprint PCS and Verizon. As opposed to GSM technology, the CDMA does not assign a specific frequency to each user. Instead, every channel uses the full available spectrum.

CDMA was first invented and used in War World II by the English allies because of the Germans that was trying to jam their transmit ion, so the allies decided to transmit over several frequencies, instead of one, making jamming the transmit ion very difficult.
“Because Qualcomm created communications chips for CDMA technology, it was privy to the classified information. Once the information became public, Qualcomm claimed patents on the technology and became the first to commercialize it.”

CDMA was first commercialized in 1993 and adopted by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). By 1998 there were over 16 million subscribers and by May 2001 there were over 35 millions subscribers. In 2000, CDMA technology was improved to be faster. This first phase of CDMA2000 - variously called 1XRTT, 3G1X, or just plain 1X - is designed to double current voice capacity and support always-on data transmission speeds 10 times faster than typically available today, some 153.6 kbps on both the forward and reverse links. QUALCOMM and their CDMA technology are trying to weave their in the 3G market and they are definitely doing that. CDMA is now being used in over 43 countries around the world.