Is CTIA an Acronym?

Occasionally a reporter or someone who is new to the wireless industry will ask, “Is CTIA an acronym?”

That question was recently posted by a commenter and I thought I’d take a few minutes to respond.

The short answer is that CTIA is an orphan acronym.

When our organization was first called CTIA in 1985, the acronym stood for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. Fifteen years later, CTIA merged with the Wireless Data Forum and became the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.

In 2004, we changed our name to CTIA-The Wireless Association®. We believe this better represents our diverse membership of service providers, manufacturers, wireless data and Internet companies, as well as other contributors to the wireless universe.

To learn more about our organization, please click here. To learn more about the history of wireless, please click here.