Mobile station
all user equipment and software needed for communication with a mobile network
A mobile station (MS) comprises all user equipment and software needed for communication with a mobile network.
The term refers to the global system connected to the mobile network, i.e. a mobile phone or mobile computer connected using a mobile broadband adapter. This is the terminology of 2G systems like GSM. In 3G systems, a mobile station (MS) is now referred to as user equipment (UE).
In GSM, a mobile station consists of four main components:
Mobile termination (MT) - offers common functions such as: radio transmission and handover, speech encoding and decoding, error detection and correction, signalling and access to the SIM. The IMEI code is attached to the MT. It is equivalent to the network termination of an ISDN access.
Terminal equipment (TE) - is any device connected to the MS offering services to the user. It does not contain any functions specific to GSM.
Terminal adapter (TA) - provides access to the MT as if it were an ISDN network termination with extended capabilities. Communication between the TE and MT over the TA takes place using AT commands.
Subscriber identity module (SIM) - is a removable subscriber identification token storing the IMSI, a unique key shared with the mobile network operator and other data.
In a mobile phone, the MT, TA and TE are enclosed in the same case.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mobile station” is all user equipment and software needed for communication with a mobile network. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mobile, station and user, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “all user equipment and software needed for communication with a mobile network” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 25, 2021. The linked authority identifier is Q384018. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mobile station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.