NXDN is an open standard Common Air Interface (CAI) technical protocol for mobile communications. It was developed jointly by Icom Incorporated and Kenwood Corporation.
NXDN is implemented by Icom in their IDAS system and by Kenwood as NEXEDGE; both Kenwood and Icom now offer dual-standard equipment which supports the European dPMR standard.
Icom and Kenwood began their collaboration in 2003. The NXDN protocol was announced in 2005, and NXDN-compatible products first appeared in 2006.
The NXDN Common Air Interface (CAI) was accepted at the Study Group 5 (SG5) meeting of the International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunications Sector (ITU-R) held in November 2016 and in report M.2014-3 published in February 2017 as an international digital land mobile system.
The NXDN protocol and the communications products in which it is used are intended for commercial Private Land Mobile Radio (PLMR) and public safety communications systems. The technology satisfies the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate requiring all communications systems covered by Part 90 regulations to use narrowband technology by January 1, 2013. Part 90 regulations specify a bandwidth of 12.5 kHz, but the FCC “strongly urges licensees to consider migrating directly to 6.25 kHz technology rather than first adopting 12.5 kHz technology and later migrating to 6.25 kHz technology.” The FCC “will expeditiously establish a schedule for transition to 6.25 kHz narrowband technology.”
NXDN uses Frequency-Division, Multiple-Access (FDMA) technology in which different communication streams are separated by frequency and run concurrently. Time-Division, Multiple-Access (TDMA) systems combine the communications streams into a single stream in which information from the different streams is transmitted in interleaved time allocations or "slots." Code-Division, Multiple-Access (CDMA) systems allow many users to share a common spectrum allocation by using spread-spectrum techniques.