F

FCC - Federal Communications Commission. The government agency responsible for regulating telecommunications in the United States, located in Washington, D.C. Their responsibilities for public radio communications, such as cellular, include allocation of frequencies, the development of regulations that govern their use and monitoring to ensure that regulations are followed.

FDMA - Frequency Division Multiple Access.

FEC - Forward Error Correction (coding / decoding technique).

FER - Frame Error Rate.

FH - Frequency Hopping.

FHMA - Frequency Hopping Multiple Access.

Flash- Hook - 400ms of signaling tone sent on the reverse voice channel (by the mobile) to request a hook flash.

FM - Frequency Moduation; modulation of the RF carrier frequency.

Follow-Me Roaming - The ability for the cellular system to automatically forward calls to a roaming mobile that has left it's primary service area. Without this feature, the calling party must know the location of the roamer and place a call to that areas MTSO first (calling a 'port'), then calling the mobile.

Forced Disconnect - A call processing function that forces termination of a call, usually not at the mobile subscriber's request.

Forward Control Channel (FOCC) - A Control Channel used from the base station-to-subscriber direction, also known as the control channel downlink.

Forward Voice Channel (FVC) - A voice channel used in the base station-to-subscriber direction, also known as the voice channel downlink.

Four-Wire Line - A two-way transmission circuit using two pairs of conductors, to allow full duplex (simultaneous) conversation without multiplexing.

Free space loss - This is simply the power loss of the signal as a result of the signal spreading out as it travels through space. As a wave travels, it spreads out its power over space, I.E. as the wave front spreads, so does its power.

Frequency hopping - The transmitter hops to one of many channels, The receiver knows the sequence of the frequency hopper and follows each hop.

Frequency Reuse - The ability to use the same frequencies repeatedly within a single system, made possible by the basic design approach for cellular. Since each cell is designed to use radio frequencies only within its boundaries, the same frequencies can be reused in other cells not far away with little potential for interference. The reuse of frequencies is what allows a cellular system to handle a huge number of calls with a limited number of channels.

Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) - The form of frequency modulation that used two separate audio frequencies to transmit binary ones and zeros.

Front-End - The first stage of filtering in a receiver. The first circuit stage following the antenna input to the receiver.

FSK - Frequency Shift Keying; a digital binary modulation of the RF carrier frequency.

Full Duplex - Refers to a communications system that uses two separate transmit and receive paths to allow simultaneous conversation in two directions.