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US PCS is the label given to the digital Personal Communications standard for North America. Frequency allocations have been assigned by the FCC in the 1900 MHz range, and most have been auctioned to specific service providers, with a small band reserved for unlicensed use. To date there are seven different major standards (PCS-TAG-1 through PCS-TAG-7) proposed for US PCS use. PCS-TAG-2 is the version based on IS-95, a U.S. standard for digital cellular communications based on a 1.25 MHz bandwidth Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) spread spectrum air interface developed by Qualcomm. Proponents claim this scheme will increase capacity over conventional AMPS cellular service by a factor of 8 to 10. Along with the DCS-1800-based PCS-TAG-5, this scheme is presently one of the most successful US PCS standards.
Links to more information:
- The CDMA Development Group website discusses CDMA technology in detail, starting at the
 CDMA Technology page.
- CDMA Technology and Benefits is a paper by Motorola's Cellular Infrastructure Group giving a good overview of how a IS-95 based CDMA cellular system works, and the proposed benefits of such a system
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