Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) - An air interface technology that was developed by the U.S. military and commercialized by the U.S. company Qualcomm. CDMA assigns a code to all speech bits, sends a scrambled transmission of the encoded speech over the air and reassembles the speech to its original form at the other end. CDMA supports SMS with a message length of 120 characters. With CDMA, each conversation is digitized and then tagged with a code. The mobile phone receives a signal to locate that particular code and it then deciphers the conversation off the airwaves. It codes each conversation expanding it 128 times, making it easy to decipher at the receiving end.