Where is FDMA used?

The main objective of SC-FDMA is to introduce transmission with lower PAPR than OFDMA .

SC-FDMA is preferred for LTE uplink mainly due to its advantage of having low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) during signal transmission . The performance of SC-FDMA depends on modulation scheme used for it.

It is used in satellite communication systems and telephone trunklines . FDMA splits the total bandwidth into multiple channels. Each ground station on the earth is allocated a particular frequency group (or a range of frequencies).

SC-FDMA (Singe Carrier FDMA) presents the benefit of a single carrier multiplexing of having a lower Peak-to-average Power Ratio . On SC-FDMA before applying the IFFT the symbols are pre coded by a DFT (Discrete Fourier Transform). This way each subcarrier after de IFFT will contain part of each symbol.