For many readers, the mobile telephone industry has become jumble of alphabetic abbreviations. But once you know what the short-cut language is all about, the industry becomes a bit clearer. Here’s a glossary of terms related to the sector from the about.com Website.

GSM

GSM (Global Standard for Mobile) is considered the most advanced digital cellular technology, popular in Europe and Asia. GSM networks are leaders in many typically "digital" services, including the Short Message Service (SMS). Its technology and presence in the world put GSM is in good position for global roaming, and many new GSM phones are called "global phones," since they can be used in virtually any country. The SIM card ("Subscriber Identification Module") is also an essential component of GSM phones.

DAMPS

DAMPS (Digital Advanced Mobile Phone Service) is older wireless technology, an upgrade of the analog AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service). DAMPS does not support modern cellular services, such as WAP or SMS, and is considered outdated by many experts.

WAP

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is a standard for transferring Web pages to cell phones and displaying them on small screens. In order to be WAP enabled, a cell phone must have a WAP browser capable of reading and displaying web pages coded in WML (Wireless Markup Language), one of the wireless equivalents to HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). WAP is being increasingly adopted as the global standard.