Radio spectrum being a limited resource that is consumed and divided among all the users, GSM devised a combination of TDMA/FDMA as the method to divide the bandwidth among the users. In this process, the FDMA part divides the frequency of the total 25 MHz bandwidth into 124 carrier frequencies of 200 kHz bandwidth.
Each BS is assigned with one or multiple frequencies, and each of this frequency is divided into eight timeslots using a TDMA scheme. Each of these slots are used for both transmission as well as reception of data. These slots are separated by time so that a mobile unit doesn’t transmit and receive data at the same time.
